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JOHN ADAMS 



A CHARACTER SKETCH 



SAMUEL WILLARD, M.D., LL.D. 

Author of "Synopsis of History," etc. 



WITH ANECDOTES, CHARACTERISTICS AND 
CHRONOLOGY 



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dansville, n. y. 
Instructor Publishing Co. 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

9l%« Cftlr*! Received 

APR 8 1903 

Cop/rit(ht &ntt/ 
1-1 S"^S 






JUM. No. 



COPY At 



Copyright 1898. 
By The University Association. 




IN the building of a house, one man must be supreme. 
The plan must be the product of one mind; if there 
are suggestions of other minds as to plan and details, they 
are accepted or rejected, so that one mind finally arranges 
all. If the owner of the house chooses to leave the mat- 
ter to an architect after telling him in general what he 
wants, the architect's one mind perfects plan and details. 

We often speak of the building of a state, and compare 
a state to a grand structure, a house, or temple. But 
the constitution of a state is never the work of one man. 
Even if a man is called an absolute ruler, an autocrat, 
czar, emperor, or tyrant, he really cannot do everything 
at his own will. Even in Turkey and Persia the sultan 
and shah find that men can not be moved as if they were 
chessmen or checkermen. It has been said that Russia 
is an autocracy, tempered by assassination. Revolt and 
revolution dog the steps of tyranny. 

We have all laughed at the story of the county officers 
who passed three resolutions: (i) ''''Resolved^ that we will 
have a new jail: (2) Resolved^ that the materials of the 
old jail shall be used in building the new jail: (3) Re- 



6 JOHN ADAMS. 

solved^ that the old jail shall be occupied until the new 
jail is built." However funny this story may be as ap- 
plied to a material building, it sets forth the actual prob- 
lem of the real statesman. 

As a nation advances in civilization, in knowledge, in 
wealth, in moral and spiritual life, its former institutions 
and customs become the old jail: the new life must be 
expressed in new laws and regulations, which the true 
statesman prepares. In doing so, he retains all that is 
suitable of the old ways; and it will be found that his 
changes and new enactments are few in comparison with 
the entire mass of customs and habits of his people: this 
is occupying the old jail while the new structure is erect- 
ed. And his changes are in the line of the healthy ten- 
dencies of the existing life of the community: he is thus 
building the new out of the materials of the old. In 
time, his new structure will become an old jail to a later 
age, cramping and confining it. Then the same course 
of events ensues. 

In several instances, communities of the ancient 
Greeks, upon finding themselves in political difficulties, 
selected their wisest man and gave him full authority to 
make new laws, and even a new constitution; that is, to 
revise fundamentally the form of government. At Ath- 
ens, nearly 600 years before Christ, this power was con- 
ferred upon Solon, who proved to be the wisest of all 
single legislators. Some of his changes were so great 
that it was said he had moved the country with an earth- 
quake. They were like our revolutionary war in de- 
stroying the exclusive power of the nobles, and like our 



JOHN ADAMS. 7 

civil war in giving freedom to a mass of slaves. Wise 
as he was, he talked of some of his plans with his friends, 
and doubtless gave some heed to their objections and 
suggestions. And this is the crowning proof of his wis- 
dom: he recognized the necessity of further changes, 
saying that he had not given the Athenians the best pos- 
sible laws, but the best laws for them as they then were. 
And after he had governed them several years and ac- 
customed them to his laws, he left them and went out of 
the country, that they might use the new freedom them- 
selves; for he saw that it would be of no use to give 
them free institutions if he must stay in Athens to keep 
them going. 

Modern states, of whatever form, are the results of the 
thoughts and work of innumerable men, working in dif- 
ferent ways, often in collision and opposition to each 
other, sometimes in civil war and revolution. The study 
of history has its greatest interest in the exhibition of 
this fact. Jewish, Greek, Roman, Keltic, and Teutonic 
elements appear in our daily life, in our laws, in our con- 
stitutions. 

The excellence of the work of the makers of the con- 
stitution of the United States came from their taking 
ideas, more or less familiar to the people, and suited to 
American and Colonial conditions; and these they 
wrought into a practical and practicable form and 
scheme. If the geography of the country had been 
something else, if the history of the settlement and 
the growth of the colonies had been different, if the 
people had not been of common and cognate origin from 



8 JOHN ADAMS. 

the British Islands and the Netherlands, the form of gov- 
ernment would have been something else, perhaps not 
even a republic. 

American young people, and old people too, if they 
have not thought over the question carefully, are apt to 
think that all governments should be like ours, demo- 
cratic federated republican. If they should hear that in 
the western half of China the people had set up a repub- 
lic, they would rejoice at the spread of free government. 
But experience shows that republics are suited only to 
very small communities imbued with a strong and narrow 
sense of patriotism and cohesion, or to well-trained lar- 
ger peoples. 

Scores of republics have flourished a while and then 
have gone to wreck; some have gone upon the rocks im- 
mediately. In 1789, France entered upon the path of 
revolution; she soon killed her king, drove out or slew 
her nobles and priests, and with a great flourish pro- 
claimed Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. In less than 
ten years thereafter, she was under the military despotism 
of the first Napoleon of iron hand and stony heart: then 
she recalled her kings; then set up another republic; 
then succumbed to another military tyranny, which en- 
ded in 1870; and only within the last twenty years has 
it seemed to hopeful Americans that Fraiice is to be 
henceforth a republic, but with certainty of many diffi- 
culties to be overcome. Yet no one will deny the high 
intelligence and ardent patriotism of hosts of Frenchmen. 

Switzerland has for 600 years been free from monar- 
chy, and hence, called a republic; but her republicanism 



JOHN ADAMS. 

has been very unlike ours; and her whole territory is 
only four-fifths as large as Vermont and New Hampshire 
together. 

Such facts as these should lead us to admire the more, 
the wisdom and 
unselfishness 
and patriotism 
of the founders 
of the indepen- 
dence and con- 
stitutional gov- 
ernments of the 
states and of the] 
nation. 

Small c o m- 
munities have 
made republics 
more easily, be- 
cause their peo- 
ple have had 
similar habits 
and feelings, 
could easily 
communicate 
with each other, and could all know something of the 
men, chosen as officers or rulers. But the constitution of 
1787 was so framed, that in connection with the tele- 
graph, railroads, steam navigation, and the modern 
press, the modern means of communication and informa- 
tion, it may gather under its sway, the whole of North 




Napoleon Bonaparte. 



10 JOHN ADAMS. 

America in due time. These founders worked with ap- 
prehension and even fear that they were attempting an 
experiment the issue of which was doubtful; but they 
put into it sincerely and hopefully their best wisdom and 
effort. We can rightly admire and honor them all, 
though we number among them such opponents as 
Hamilton and Jefferson, the Adamses and Patrick Henry. 

And this leads to another caution which the young 
student of history may need to bear in mind. Political 
opinions are not to be confounded with patriotism. Pa- 
triotism is th.e feeling of love for one's country which 
leads one to give property, effort or even life for the 
common welfare or the commonwealth. But an opinion 
is not a feeling. Two men may love the country equal- 
ly, while one thinks revenue is best raised by a direct 
tax, the other says a tariff is best. However hotly they 
may argue over it, each may be equally willing to give 
his life and his all for his country. 

The general who retreats may be just as brave as the 
one who offers battle. Washington was no less patriotic 
when he accompanied Gen. Braddock to fight for Eng- 
land and King George U, than he was when he com- 
manded the armies of the republic for eight years against 
George IH. 

In the contests of the present day, republican should 
not call democrat an enemy of his country, nor democrat 
accuse republican of lack of patriotism, so long as each 
deems the other honest, but mistaken. The demagogue, 
the political boss and the dishonorable ofiticeseeker are 
the only enemies of the commonwealth. 



JOHN ADAMS. ii 

Hence, in studying the lives of the early patriots, we 
can honor as equal patriots the opponents named above, 
though Hamilton and John Adams feared lest the con- 
stitution had framed a government too weak to survive, 
Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams feared it would be 
too strong, and Jefferson sometimes used expressions 
which were anarchic. Each ardently desired the welfare 
of his country, while differing as to the means of secur- 
ing that result. Let us judge their opinions, but honor 
their motives alike. History shows that thus far their 
fears have proved groundless. 

John Adams, the second president of the United States, 
had the peculiar fortune of being for a while, one of the 
most honored citizens of the country, intrusted with 
most important offices and appointments, and rendering 
services which were recognized as of vital importance to 
his native land; and then had the misfortune of retiring 
into private life under a load of calumny and obloquy, 
which made his name a byword of contempt. But with 
the fall of slavery and of the predominance of the polit- 
ical cliques and parties that persecuted him unjustly, it 
is possible to raise him again to his proper place as one 
of our foremost statesmen. 

In 1636, Henry Adams appears as one of the freemen 
and founders of the town of Braintree, Massachusetts, 
previously called Mount Wollaston, about ten miles from 
Boston, to the south and east. In 1792, the northwest 
part of Braintree was cut off as Quincy, a place famous 
as the birthplace of the two presidents, John Adams and 
John Quincy Adams, and of John Hancock. The emi- 



12 JOHN ADAMS. 

nent Ouincy family was early settled here. And from 
that part of old Braintree came the Quincy granite to 
build Bunker Hill monument, whose architect was a cit- 
izen of that town. 

Of the English family from which Henry Adams came, 
little can be said. The name probably indicates an ori- 
gin from the Welsh border of England, where such 
names as Williams, Peters, Davids, John or Jones, Thom- 
as, and the like are more common than elsewhere in Brit- 
ain. Among those to whom Charles I granted the char- 
ter of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, there is found 
the name of Thomas Adams, who must have been a man 
of some wealth and importance. It is guessed that Hen- 
ry was a younger brother: Thomas did not come to 
America. 

Henry Adams neither brought nor won wealth. The 
Puritan farmers had a hard time to maintain themselves 
on the sterile soil and in the bleak climate of New Eng- 
land. His whole estate as inventoried at his death, was 
scanty enough: a little land, a three-room house, a barn, 
a cow and calf, some pigs, fodder for the beasts; and in 
the house, kitchen utensils, three beds, a few old books, 
and one silver spoon. 

But this hard land made strong men. The weak went 
early to their graves with consumption: the strong sur- 
vived and propagated their race. 

The Kanaka savage believed that the strength and 
courage of the enemy whom he slew and ate, entered in- 
to him. The New Englander found it so in the strife 
with Nature. The stinginess of Nature compelled par- 



JOHN ADAMS. 



•3 



simony, abstinence, labor, ingenuity. The bitter east 
winds, and the stony hills, seemed to enter into the con- 
stitution of the Yankee, so that the genuine son of that 
stern sad land carries its granite in his blood with a cer- 
tain fierce force. 

The rigid theological system of Calvin, accepted with- 
out mitigation by the Puritan, consorted well with the 

severity of Nature, 

and intensified the 
character she genera- 
ted. 

So in Braintree, 
(local pronunciation 
is Bran-try,) and its 
vicinity, the descend- 
ants of Henry Ad- 
ams clung to the soil 
and grew in num- 
bers, wealth and civ- 
ic importance, neith- 
er poor nor rich, and with but the commonest ambitions. 
It was enough to live simply, to be upright with God, 
and to deserve the respect of the community, 

Joseph Adams, grandson of Henry the colonial immi- 
grant, had a large family of twelve children, one of 
whom, John, was the father of the president. Joseph 
had a brotlier John, who was the grandfather of Samuel 
Adams of Boston, the revolutionary agitator. Thus, 
Samuel Adams, thirteen years the elder of the future 
president, was his second cousin. The genealogical ta- 




Samuel Adams 



14 JOHN ADAMS. 

ble on the following page will make plain the family rela- 
tions. Joseph gave the eldest of his twelve children an 
education at Harvard College. This was deemed an equiv- 
alent to a share in the paternal goods; and at his death, 
he omitted that son in the distribution of his property. 
The president's father was not the recipient of this ad- 
vantage, but remained a farmer. He married Susanna 
Boylston, daughter of Peter Boylston. He was so pe- 
cuniarly prosperous, that his property, as listed for pro- 
bate, was more than sixteen times as much as that of his 
great grandfather Henry. 

The eldest child of John and Susanna, was John, the 
subject of our memoir, born Oct. 19, 1735, old style, 
which, according to new style and the calendar then 
used in Europe, generally, and which we now use, was 
Oct. 30. 

This firstborn, a Sunday's child, the pious parents 
would gladly have devoted to the ministry of the Chris- 
tian church. That ambition survived in many a New 
England family, long after that profession had lost the 
preeminence and prodigious influence of an earlier time. 
For this purpose they sent him to Harvard, where he 
graduated, or, as was then said, was graduated, in 1755. 
Many men afterward, eminent in church and state, were 
his classmates. There was William Browne, governor 
of the Bermudas; Sir John Wentworth, two years youn- 
ger than Adams, governor of New Hampshire, 1767-1775, 
and as he was a "loyalist" or adherent to the British 
side in the Revolution, an exile to Nova Scotia, where 
he was Lieutenant-governor, 1792-1808, dying in 1820; 



JOHN ADAMS. 



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l6 JOHN ADAMS. 

David Sewall, who followed a family tendency, and w 
long time judge of the District Court of Maine; Mos 
Hemenway, a noted preacher; Samuel Locke, preside 
of Harvard, fifteen years after his graduation, 1770 
1773; and Adams's intimate friend, Charles Cushin 
Of his rank in College, we know that Adams, Heme 
way and Locke were deemed the best scholars. It ^^ 
the custom then and until 1773, to rank pupils in t 
catalogue, according to social rank: John Adams, the s 
of a country farmer, was thus the fourteenth among twt 
ty four. 

Of his uneventful life at work on his father's farm, ■> 
know naught. As a boy of ten, he must have be 
stirred with the rest of the community in 1745 by t 
capture of the French fortress of Louisburg, Cape Bret 
Island, by the forces of the colonists without an Engli 
soldier or officer: it had been considered impregnab' 
and was a great nuisance to the Americans. New Er 
land alone and on her own motion took it. Old Er 
land might have learned from this of what sort her cli 
dren in the West were; and in fact, the very man who 
chief engineer of the expedition laid and directed t 
lines of the besiegers at Louisburg, marked the lines 
Bunker Hill. 

In the year of Adams's graduation, he must ha 
marked with apprehension, the encroachments of t 
French, and the defeat of Braddock, while admiring t 
brave young Virginian colonel, Washington, then fii 
heard of in New England. It was eight years later 1: 
fore the French ceased to be a danger to New Englai 



JOHN ADAMS. > 17 

and the middle colonies. Shortly after graduation, 
twenty years before the outbreak of the Revolution, this 
youth of twenty wrote thus to to his friend Nathan 
Webb:— 

"England is now the greatest nation upon the globe. 
A few people came over into this new world for con- 
science sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident 
may transfer the great seat of empire into America. It 
looks likely to me; for if we can remove the turbulent 
Gallicks [/. ^., drive away the troublesome French,] our 
people, according to the exactest computations, will in 
another century become more numerous than England 
itself. Should this be the case, since we have, I may 
say, all the naval stores of the nation in our hands, it 
will be easy to obtain the mastery of the seas; and then 
the united force of all Europe will not be able to subdue 
us. The only way to keep us from setting up for our- 
selves is to disunite us. Divide et Ivipera. Keep us 
distinct colonies; and then, some great men in each col- 
ony, desiring the monarchy [he uses the word in its 
Greek sense of sole control] of the whole, they will de- 
stroy each other's influence, and keep the country in 
equilibrio.'''' 

This letter was first published in 1807, brought to 
light by the son of Nathan Webb. Its anticipations and 
their correctness are remarkable. He anticipates the 
greatness of America, to become "the great seat of Em- 
pire." The extinction of French power in America is 
expected as a matter of course, though that year had 
seen three ill-managed campaigns of England against 



i8 , JOHN ADAMS. 

France in this country. Our growth in population is 
foreseen: a century from that time the population of the 
United States slightly exceeded the total population of 
the British Isles. Naval power is foretold: during the 
Revolution and in his administration as president, he 
was always urging the increase of power, both of the nat- 
ional navy and of our mercantile fleet; the war of 1812, 
the civil war and our war with Spain now current show 
the wisdom of his policy. Independence is foreseen: he 
was one of the chief agents in winning it. The danger 
of sectionalism and divisions among our people he pre- 
sents, as if foreseeing the "Critical Period," as Mr. 
Fiske names the years following the Revolution, and the 
great secession. His own future policy is foreshadowed. 
He had not decided upon his profession when he left 
college. Friends and relatives urged him toward the 
pulpit, toward which he was somewhat inclined. But 
Puritanism was essentially polemic or combative. The 
struggles of protestantism and its several forms of sects 
to secure their own right to exist, had not led them to 
any toleration of others. As Spain belonged to the pap- 
acy, Scotland to presbytery, and England to episcopacy, 
so should New England belong to independency of the 
calvinistic type. They had crossed the ocean and suf- 
fered many hardships to make a place for themselves: 
they could ill bear the intrusion of other religions into 
their hard-won domain. Besides, their earnestness and 
their confidence that they alone had the true gospel made 
them less tolerant. Indifference and doubt find tolera- 
tion easy; but the indifferent or skeptic mood of mind 



JOHN ADAMS. 



19 



has no real toleration, and is apt to be contemptuous or 
bitter toward earnestness. Much that passes for toler- 
ance in these days is really indifference. 

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, toleration 
was hardly practicable anywhere, so fierce was the con- 
tention of sects; 
and it advanced 
slowly in New 
England through 
the eighteenth 
century. The 
domineering spirit 
of the "orthodox" 
church kept John 
Adams from the 
pulpit, as it had 
kept John Milton 
a hundred years 
before. Neither of 
these strong men 
could afford to give 
up freedom of 
thinking and 
speaking. So 
while Adams was master of a grammiar school at Worces- 
ter in his first year after graduating, he determined to 
be a lawyer. 

Sixty years later, he wrote to a gentleman who had 
unearthed a letter of this period. 

"I was like a boy in a country fair, in a wilderness, in 




John Milton. 



20 JOHN ADAMS. 

a strange country, with half a dozen roads before him, 
groping in a dark night to find which he ought to take. 
Had I been obliged to tell your father the whole truth, 
I should have mentioned several other pursuits. Farm- 
ing, merchandise, law, and above all, war. Nothing but 
want of interest and patronage prevented me from enlist- 
ing in the army. Could I have obtained a troop of 
horse or a company of foot, I should infallibly have 
been a soldier. It is a problem in my mind to this day, 
whether I should have been a coward or a hero." 

Looking at his actual career, \Ve can confidently say 
that his brave soul would have carried a cowardly body 
into any danger, if duty bade. But was his disposition 
to be a soldier due to a pugnacity abundantly shown in 
later life? Or was it because the necessities of wars with 
France had made all New England military? 

Mr. Adams began to keep a diary when he was twenty 
years old, and with great gaps here and there, he con- 
tinued it till 1796. Much of it has been published, fur- 
nishing valuable hints for the history of his times. But 
it has given opportunity for some harsh judgments about 
his personal character. He often accuses himself of 
faults, especially of what he calls vanity, meaning un- 
due self-esteem. He says it is his besetting sin. 

But as we read this we should remember that he 
judged himself by the Puritan standards. The Puritans 
were very religious, and had very rigid codes of morals, 
and conscientiously adopted strict rules of personal con- 
duct. Their theology taught them to abase themselves 
and to examine their own lives and thoughts and impul- 



JOHN ADAMS. 21 

ses with great severity of judgment. Every man must 
be ready to say with St. Paul that he was "the chief of 
sinners." 

In short, a Puritan in those and earlier times was a 
man with a sore conscience, which he continued to punch 
and irritate, as medieval monks wore haircloth shirts and 
flogo-ed themselves with knotted cords. "Woe to them 
that are at ease in Zion!" was a favorite admonition. In 
their prayers they told God that they were vile repro- 
bates, worthy of eternal damnation. Really they were 
sober, industrious, pure-minded, self-sacrificing, upright 
men. It was s^id of them that they were so upright as 
to lean the other way. Their worst fault was this ex- 
treme censoriousness, applied to themselves and to ev- 
erybody else. The Puritan tried to rule all men as he 
thought he ought to rule himself. Such people, howev- 
er excellent, are often very uncomfortable neighbors. 

There is no reason to think that self-esteem was great- 
er in Adams than in Jefferson or Hamilton, or Washing- 
ton. Every man must feel that he and his work are 
worth something in the world, or he will be indeed a 
cipher. 

Doubtless John Adams, like many other people, con- 
founded just self-reliance with exuberant self-esteem, or 
with undue. love of approbation. The most undesirable 
effect of this tendency was to make one impute wrongly to 
others such faults ?.s he charges upon himself, and thus 
to make him suspicious. No man detects vanity in an 
others quicker than one conscious of vanity. When bit- 
ter experience had taught Adams the lesson of distrust. 



22 JOHN ADAMS. 

he is charged with being too suspicious. But let the 
reader consider the story of his relations to his cabinet, 
and he will see that the president was not suspicious 
enough. As men of clear judgment grow old, they be- 
come less trustful, but make wiser judgments of others. 

Mr. Adams studied law with Mr. Putnam of Worcester 
while he was a schoolmaster. There was then no such 
introduction to legal science as "Blackstone's Commen- 
taries" (published 1768); and the student had to elaborate 
and arrange principles for himself from "Coke upon Lit- 
tleton" and volumes written in the bad Latin of earlier 
centuries. , 

In 1760 Adams writes that he read at Worcester ten 
folio volumes "besides octavos and lesser volumes," hav- 
ing constant reference to reports and dictionaries. Evi- 
dently he studied Cicero, Seneca, Montesquieu, Boling- 
broke, for the philosophy of ethics, law, and government. 

Returning to Braintree in 1758, he read there in two 
years Justinian's Institutes (in Latin), taking with it and 
writing an English translation. Van Muy den's Tractatio 
Institutionum Justiniani: he lists eight other law treatises. 
He then complains that he has ''a very imperfect system 
of law in my head:" he will read over and over Wood 
and Coke; will study on natural law and civil law; mas- 
ter Puffendorf and Grotius; and promised to finish with 
canon and feudal law — a sort of dessert, as it were, af- 
ter such an enormous devouring. 

Upon such a basis of industry and acquirement did 
this one of the founders of our republic build his future 
career; and thus did he fit himself to represent the Uni- 



JOHN ADAMS. 23 

ted States in three courts in Europe. It disgusts an 
American to contrast with this giant of preparation and 
ability, some of the names that are proposed for nomin- 
ation in national conventions in our day. 

Jeremiah Gridley, the foremost lawyer of New Eng- 
land, presented Mr. Adams with a complimentary recom- 
mendation, Nov. 6, 1758, and the court admitted him to 
the bar. Gridley favored him, because he liked him. 
Two points of advice given by the old lawyer are worthy 
of remembrance: "First, pursue the study of law rather 
than the gain of it: pursue the gain of it enough to keep 
out of the briars, but give your main attention to the 
study of it: second, do not marry early, for an early 
marriage will obstruct your improvement; and in the 
next place it will involve you in expense." 

He soon had so much business that he says no lawyer 
had more with so little profit in the next seventeen 
years, which brings us to the outbreak of the Revolution. 
Fees were small; but, as Mr. Morse says, the colonists 
were great sticklers for their legal rights, and would go 
to law on small provocation. This characteristic he 
finds appearing in their oncoming strife with king and 
parliament. 

The second part of Gridley's advice he minded for six 
years. Then he married Abigail Smith, daughter of 
Rev. William Smith of the neighboring town of Wey- 
mouth. He thus became allied to the influential fami- 
lies of Quincy and Norton and Shepard: everybody 
knows how large the Smith family is. The marriage 
did but increase his business. The lady was for fifty-four 




Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams. 
(From the Painting by Gilbert Stuart.) 



JOHN ADAMS. 25 

years one of the best of wives, most helpful to him by 
her fine mind, her wisdom, her courage in trials, and her 
love. All who read their lives admire her. 

Mr. Adams was devoting himself closely to his pro- 
fession, and abstaining from politics, though not un- 
interested in what was going on. His nature and habits 
were not likely to 
win popularity. The 
leaders came to see 
his value and drew 
him among them. 

His kinsman, Sam- 
uel Adams, was lead- 
er in popular agita- 
tion, and was work- 
ing toward an end 
that he dared not yet 
avow, absolute inde- 
pendence. John Ad- 
ams, as we have 
shown, foresaw this, but only as something remote. 

The famous contest over "Writs of Assistance" oc- 
curred in 1 761. Adams, attending court as a member 
of the bar, heard the powerful speech of James Otis, of 
which we have no account but his. That shows how 
the argument and the vivid force of its utterance affec- 
ted him and others. In reminiscence of it he said, 
"Then and there the child Independence was born." 
John Adams was resolved from that moment. But he 
used a similar expression about the event of March 5, 




James Otis. 



26 JOHN ADAMS. 

1774, the collision between the soldiers and the populace 
of Boston. He said: "On that night the foundation of 
American independence was laid." In fact, George III 
had begun laying such foundation as soon as he became 
King. 

The writer of biography must presume the reader to 
be informed of the current of events: we can but men- 
tion them. On the passage of the Stamp Act, 1765, Mr. 
Adams led in calling a town-meeting, at which he pre- 
sented resolutions of instruction to the representatives of 
Braintree in the Assembly. They were published; forty 
other towns adopted them, and Samuel Adams used them 
in preparing Boston's resolutions. He and most others 
regretted the work of the mobs that destroyed the houses 
of Oliver and Hutchinson, for violence tangled the case. 
Most of the judges of the colony paid no attention to the 
act, and issued writs without stamps; but Hutchinson, 
as chief justice and probate judge of Suffolk, would 
not hold court. 

Boston petitioned the governor's council to have the 
courts opened, and selected as its lawyers to urge the pe- 
tition Jeremiah Gridley, James Otis, and John Adams, 
who was not a Bostonian. He had notice Dec. 19th, 
and had to plead the next day. He spoke first, and took 
the ground that the Stamp Act was invalid since the col- 
onies had no representation. Gridley and Otis had pre- 
viously admitted the right of Parliament to legislate for 
the colonies. 

In 1766 Townshend's act laid taxes on glass, paper, 
paints and tea. This was met by the non-importation 



JOHN ADAMS. 



27 



agreement 

and smug- 
gling. In 
1768 Adams 
moved to 
Boston. Gov. 
Bernard o f- 
fered him the 
office of advo- 
cate - general 
in the court 
of admiralty, 
saying that 
he asked no 
compliance 
i n political 
opinions. Ad- 
ams prompt- 
ly refused it. 

That year 
troops came 
t o overawe 
the people; 
and an old 
statute of 
Henry VIII 




Statue of Josiah Quincy, Boston. Mass. 



was brought up to warrant transportation of alleged 
traitors to England for trial. 

In 1770 Lord North became minister and the Kmg's 
pliant agent. On the fifth of March occurred the collis- 



28 JOHN ADAMS. 

ion of populace and soldiers, wrongly called the Boston 
Massacre. Captain Preston and the soldiers were arres- 
ted, while the regiments were sent out of the city. By 
Hutchinson's advice, Preston asked the patriot lawyers, 
John Adams and Josiah Quincy, to defend him and his 
men. They did it successfully. Perhaps Hutchinson 
thought they would lose popularity; but in June, three 
months before the trial, Boston chose Adams her repre- 
sentative; he had seventy-eight per cent of the votes 
cast. 

Judges had been paid from the colonial treasury. 
Lord North undertook to control them by having their 
salaries paid by the King. Adams published arguments 
against this, and induced the Assembly to impeach Peter 
Oliver, Chief Justice, who accepted the King's money. 
No jury would thenceforth serve in his court. 

In 1773 occurred the "Boston Tea Party." * In all 
these struggles John Adams was the legal adviser of the 
patriots. Violence was not used till the last moment. 
The patriots tried to make the captain of the ^'■Dartmouth'''' 
take his tea away. The Governor would not give him 
a clearance. At the end of twenty days the revenue 
officers would take possession of the vessel and land the 
tea. A struggle with them must not occur; hence on 
the night of the nineteenth day, the "Mohawks" com- 
mitted a private trespass in pouring the tea into the 
harbor. 

In 1774 came the Boston Port Bill; the Quebec Act; 
the annuhnent of the charter of Massachusetts; the act 
to remove trials to England; the quartering of troops 



JOHN ADAMS. 29 

upon the people; and the appointment of Gen. Gage as 
Governor. This was as bad as James II and Andros 
nearly a century before. 

The Assembly held a session with locked doors to 
prevent the interference of Gage, passed resolutions in 
accord with the action of Virginia calling upon the col- 
onies to hold another Congress; and these were appoint- 
ed as delegates: Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert 
Treat Paine, James Bowdoin and Thomas Gushing. 
The first three of these signed the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Henceforth the lawyer of the Massachusetts 
courts is merged into the patriot statesman. 

In the greatness of the crisis he felt lost. Who could 
be "sufficient unto these things?" John Adams looked 
far beyond the present agitation, which was destructive, 
in which his cousin as a popular leader excelled; he saw 
that there must be construction of government as well 
as overthrow of tyranny. 

Such men as Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, Thomas 
Jefferson, and Patrick Henry did grand service as con- 
suming fires in the lumber of the old system; but no one 
of them was a practical builder. Both kinds of men are 
always needed: the world can spare neither sort; and in 
that crisis the destroyers must take the lead. Nor was 
John Adams lacking in that work, though he put in 
many a stroke for the new structures. He would build 
as fast as the ground was cleared. In this he was one 
with Washington, Franklin, Madison and John Mar- 
shall. 

The resolution of resistance and selection of delegates 



30 



JOHN ADAMS. 



to a congress of "committees" of all the colonies was 
passed on the seventeenth of June, 1774, just one year 
before the battle of Bunker Hill. It was proposed 

that the delegates 
from the several col- 
onies should meet on 
the first of Septem- 
ber next thereafterj 
at Philadelphia. 

All the colonies re- 
sponded favorably 
except Georgia, 
which sent no repre- 
sentatives. Maryland 
was so prompt that 
she chose her dele- 
gates on the twenty- 
second of June. Sev- 
en others chose dele- 
gates in July. 

Fifty-six represen- 
tatives attended: for- 
ty-four were present at the opening, Monday, September 
fifth, from eleven colonies: those from North Carolina 
were a few days late. This body was called the Con- 
tinental Congress, and sat in Carpenter's Hall. It was 
the first united organization of the colonists to resist the 
tyranny of King George and his Parliament. 

It was not the English people's Parliament, though 
there were in it great-hearted and far-seeing men who 




John Marshall, American Jurist and Statesman. 
Born 1755. Died 1835. 



JOHN ADAMS. 31 

represented the true interests of the nation, such as 
Burke, Dunning, Barre, Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, and 
Lenox, Duke of Richmond. But the Parliament was 
then elected by the influence of few men, and did not 
represent the people. 

It is worth while to review here the story of the growth 
of English liberty from which sprang American liberty; 
for the patriots of the Revolution demanded at first only 
that they be treated as Englishmen, under laws made by 
a body which was elected to represent the people, in 
some degree at least. 

The Angles, Saxons, Danes and Normans that made 
the English people always had a great deal of personal 
liberty. The kings were leaders in war, judges in peace, 
but paid the expenses of their courts and palaces from 
the income from the lands called crown lands. The 
people paid few taxes to the king, except in emergen- 
cies. 

There grew up the Feudal System under which the 
knights and nobles made serfs (not slaves) of the com- 
mon people, claiming from them much of the products 
of their labor. The knights and nobles were obliged to 
serve the king in war at his summons; but the king 
could not claim of them any taxes or contributions be- 
yond certain ones allowed by the Feudal System, called 
reliefs, aids, and fines: the word fines did not have its 
present meaning. 

If the king wanted more money, he must call a meet- 
ing of his great nobles and ask for it: he could collect 
only what they granted. In like manner, a duke or 




King John Sealing the Magna Charta, 



JOHN ADAMS. 33 

great noble must call a meeting of the knights and no- 
bles under him and have it voted if he wanted money 
from them. Thus there grew up the rule "no tax with- 
out a vote." 

A willful king, if disposed to tyranny, might get 
more. But in 1 2 1 5 the very bad King, John, was forced 
by a rebellion of almost all his nobles to sign a document 
called Magna Charta, in which he promised for himself 
and his successors, that all his subjects should be treated 
justly and according to law, and that he would claim no 
taxes, but such as should be voted legally. Many other 
limits were put upon the King by Magna Charta; and 
it is remarkable that the nobles claimed rights for all 
freemen, and not for themselves only. The English no- 
bility has always been very different in that respect 
from the nobility of the continent. 

The kings used to call great councils of the princi- 
pal men of the nation, knights and nobles only, sum- 
moning whom they pleased. They also made corpora- 
tions of the burghers of large towns and cities, giving 
them charters of privileges in return for which the towns 
and cities, called boroughs, generally paid regular taxes. 

In 1265 a Parliament was called to which each county 
in England was to send two elected representatives. 
Soon the boroughs sent representatives. The kings 
found it profitable to make boroughs, because they often 
found them more pliant than the nobles. But of course 
the nobles could have great influence in determining the 
votes of the boroughs of their neighborhood: many bor- 
oughs would sell their votes, electing any man who 



34 JOHN ADAMS. 

would pay their price. Some towns went down to ruin; 
and the rich man who owned the ground where the bor- 
ough had been could elect a member of parliament by 
his single vote. 

While the power of the kings grew less as Parliament 
limited them more and more, and several civil wars 
strengthened Parliament, the kings and. their ministers 
resorted to bribery to control Parliament. Places with 
high salaries for doing little were given to those who 
voted to please the king and his party. Men were made 
barons, viscounts, earls, marquises or dukes by the 
King's favor. 

But after 1660, the rule that had grown out of the 
Feudal System was strictly observed: "No tax unless 
voted by the Parliament;" but all the Feudal obligations 
were abolished. Hence, came the idea that "Taxation 
without representation is tyranny." 

The mother of George III used to say to him while he 
was young, "George, be a King." He was really a man 
of very ordinary ability. But he thought that to be a 
King he must govern at his own pleasure, and not be 
limited by the advice of his ministers, who are held ac- 
countable. If to please the King, they do an illegal act, 
they are punished; not he. He had five several prime 
ministers in the first ten years of his reign, whose quar- 
rels and jealousies he fostered, Pitt (Chatham), was for 
a while the actual manager of the government, though 
not called prime minister; the King could not bear him, 
nor any other really strong man. 

At last, 1770, he made Frederick North his prime 



JOHN ADAMS. 35 

minister, finding him to be a man who would let the 
King have his own way. • North was of easy, indolent 
temper, unwilling to pay attention to public opinion, and 
with no attachment to any political principle but keep- 
ing things as they were. 

George ITI now took control of public affairs as com- 
pletely as had the tyrant kings of earlier days, doing ev- 
erything under cloak of the ministry, which certainly 
covered a multitude of sins against the welfare of Eng- 
land. Mr. J. R. Green ("History of the English People," 
Bk. ix^ ch a.) tells us. — 

"Not only did he direct the minister in all important 
matters of foreign and domestic policy, but he instructed 
him as to the management of debates in Parliament, 
suggested what motions should be made or opposed, and 
how new measures should be carried. He reserved for him- 
self all the patronage: he arranged the whole cast of ad- 
ministration; settled the relative places and pretensions 
of ministers of state, law officers, and members of the 
household; nominated and promoted the English and 
Scotch judges; appointed and translated bishops and 
deans, and dispensed other preferments in the Church. 
He disposed of military governments, regiments and 
commissions; and himself ordered the marching of troops. 
He gave and refused titles, honors and pensions. All 
this immense patronage was persistently used for the 
creation and maintenance in both houses of Parliament of 
a majority directed by the King himself The shame of 
the darkest hour of English history lies wholly at his 
door. ' ' 



36 JOHN ADAMS. 

Lord North did not approve of the King's acts. He 
knew that the King had had a touch of insanity in 1765, 
the Stamp-Act year. He excused himself afterward by 
saying in effect that he feared that he would bring on 
madness again if he worried the King by opposition. So 
a crazy tyrant and a pliant tool were important instru- 
ments in creating American Independence. 

King George saw that he would have trouble in rais- 
ing taxes in England, even with his purchased majority 
in Parliament. He saw that the colonies were not di- 
rectly under English law, and undertook to increase their 
burdens; but when he tried to enforce the old navigation 
acts and revenue laws which had been evaded, and to 
levy new taxes, the Commercial States resisted. 

When his Parliament altered the charter of Massa- 
chusetts and shut up the port of Boston, all the colonies 
saw that their charters might be revoked and their ports 
closed: hence, they made common cause with Massachu- 
setts. The Continental Congress united their feeling 
and their action. 

In anticipation of his going to the Congress, Mr. Ad- 
ams was studying on the questions of the day, though he 
went on his usual circuits as a lawyer. He wrote in his 
Diary. — 

"There is a new and grand scene open before me; a 
Congress. This will be an assembly of the wisest men 
upon the continent who are Americans in principle, that 
is, against the taxation of Americans by authority of 
Parliament. I feel myself unequal to this business. A 
more extensive knowledge of the realm, the colonies, and 



JOHN ADAMS. 37 

of commerce, as well as of law and policy, is necessary 
than I am master of. What can be done? Will it be 
expedient to propose an annual Congress of Committees? 
to petition? Will it do to petition at all? to the King? to 
the Lords? to the Commons? What will such consulta- 
tions avail? Deliberations alone will not do. We must 
petition or recommend to the Assemblies to petition, or 

" The dread alternative of civil war he would not 

write, even in his diary. 

To his wife he wrote his wish for leisure for prepara- 
tion: "I might be polishing up my old reading in law 
and history, that I might appear with less indecency be- 
fore a variety of gentlemen whose education, travels, ex- 
perience, family, fortune, and everything will give them 
a vast superiority to me, and I fear, even to some of my 
companions." 

The self-conceit which some charge upon Mr. Adams 
is not evident here. His solid foundation of legal, his- 
torical and philosophical knowledge made him the equal 
of any,except in the polish given by travel and extensive 
intercourse with men, and in the fortune of wealth. 

His friend, Joseph Hawley, gave him a caution which 
shows that the jokes of to-day about Boston were already 
current then. He warns him not to fall into the error 
imputed "to the Massachusetts gentlemen, and especially 
of the town of Boston," of assuming big and haughty 
airs, and affecting to dictate and take^the lead in conti- 
nental affairs. This jealousy of New England was deep- 
ly rooted. 

All the delegates from Massachusetts, except Bowdoin 



38 JOHN ADAMS. 

started together Aug. lo, going through Connecticut to 
New York. They were everywhere received with joy, 
and as public guests. But they found that independence 
and the war to win it, however evident to them, must 
not be even whispered, 

John said to Samuel Adams that they were going to 
Philadelphia to enter into unavailing agreements for 
non-importation, non- consumption, non-exportation: force 
would be necessary. 

In New York, McDougal warned them of episcopal- 
and aristocratic prejudices against "the leveling spirit of 
New England;" and Philip Livingston betrayed such 
dis'position. At Princeton, Dr. Witherspoon, president 
of the college, was working on their line; but they were 
told to be wary as they should approach Philadelphia. 
The committee that met them to escort them into the 
city let them know how they were feared as violent en- 
thusiasts. Consequently they roared so gently that 
Joseph Reed said they seemed mere milksops. They let 
Rutledge and Harrison outbrave them. "We have a del- 
icate course to steer between too much activity and too 
much insensibility," wrote John Adams. 

Things seemed to go slowly; but by the 17th of Sep- 
tember he wrote, "This day convinced me that America 
will support Massachusetts or perish with her." 

Nevertheless the delegation got others, now of one col- 
ony and now of another, to put forward their thoughts 
and plans. Most wanted Massachusetts to steer careful- 
ly between obedience and rebellion, like the famous 
sportsman who shot into the bushes "to hit it if it was 



JOHN ADAMS. 



39 




a deer, and miss it if it was a calf." The majority ex- 
pected ultimate reconciliation with England. Virginia 
and Massachusetts worked together generally, the dele- 
gates from Virginia being Washington, Henry, Peyton 
Randolph (elected to preside), 
Richard Bland, Edmund Pendle- 
ton, Benjamin Harrison and Rich- 
ard Henry Lee. Mr. Adams was 
on a committee to prepare a pe- 
tition to the King with Lee and 
Henry Johnson of Maryland, 
and John Rutledge of South Car- 
olina. 

The middle colonies and their 
views had little representation 
in that body, and the report 
was too sharp: so Dickinson of 
Pennsylvania was added to rewrite or soften it. 

A more important committee was a large one to pre- 
pare a declaration of rights. Both Adamses were in this. 
Their report affirmed that a right of taxation of colonists 
belonged to them only; but that Parliament might make 
regulations for the external commerce of all parts of the 
empire, but not for revenue. 

This first Continental Congress was controlled main- 
ly by the ideas of John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, as it 
was necessary to yield to the middle states. New York, 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and to their conciliation 
policy. But it approved the Suffolk Resolution that no 
obedience was due to the recent acts of Parliament; it 



Peyton Randolph, 

President First Continental 

Congress. 

Born 1721. Died 1775. 



40 JOHN ADAMS. 

adopted Jay's "Address to the People of Great Britain;" 
it tried to bring in all the English colonies, and sent to 
England a petition to the King, written by Dickinson. 
After thirty-one days of actual session, but fifty-two of 




Suffolk Resolves House. Milton. Mass. Built prior to 1650. Dr. Warren and 
the Committee of Safety passed the famous Suffolk Resolutions here. 

assembly, it adjourned. Mr. Adams was on the whole 
encouraged. 

A provincial congress was taking the place of the 
Charter Assembly; and Braintree sent Adams as her rep- 
resentative. He was sent to the Second Continental 
Congress, which met May lo, 1775. Meanwhile had oc- 
curred the battles of Lexington and Concord. John Han- 
cock had taken Bowdoin's place in the delegation. 

Mr. Adams found a great change in New York, the 



JOHN ADAMS. 41 

most commercial of the middle states: actual war had 
stirred the people to range themselves with Massachu- 
setts and Virginia in resistance. He left home with 
some anxiety for his family: his wife wrote him of a lo- 
cal alarm of an invasion of their neighborhood by a de- 
tachment of soldiers who came, however, only to get 
some hay. 

The middle state of Pennsylvania was under the influ- 
ence of John Dickinson, still hanging back: and many 
delegates were hopeful of reconciliation, though war was 
going on. Dickinson succeeded in carrying his point, 
one more "dutiful and humble petition," called by some 
the Olive-Branch Petition. But by the same vote there 
was joined with the order for the petition other meas- 
ures of warlike character. New York was to be put in- 
to a state of defense. Military spirit was rising. It was 
a significant fact, that Washington came to the Congress 
everyday in his uniform. He said little: the dress had 
unmistakable meaning. 

On Dickinson's day of partial success came a letter 
from Massachusetts asking advice about "the taking up 
and exercising the powers of civil government," since the 
local government was disorganized. The Congress was 
forced to act: June 9th, it advised Massachusetts to or- 
ganize a government. This was a great step toward in- 
dependence in fact, though many would not so consid- 
er it. 

Adams now pushed another suggestion of the provin- 
cial congress of his State, the adoption of the army in 
front of Boston, in which were men from other colonies. 



42 JOHN ADAMS. 

June I4tli, Congress voted to raise 20,000 men, Mr. Ad- 
ams promising to raise ten thousand from Massachusetts. 

Of course a commander-in-chief must be appointed for 
this army, to act with the authority of the United Col- 
onies, as they still called themselves. As matters stood, 
Massachusetts was carrying on war alone, with Gen. 
Artemas Ward, an esteemed officer of the French and 
Indian war, as her generalissimo. 

Mr. Adams found difficulties in local jealousies and 
personal ambitions, as well as in the backwardness of 
the moderates and conservatives. He was never lacking 
in courage; he was, indeed, liable to be charged with be- 
ing overbold, so that he chafed under the enforced de- 
lays. Private conferences with other delegates reached 
no result. He told Samuel Adams one morning that he 
was going to make a bold stroke to end the suspense: he 
would propose the adoption of the army and the appoint- 
ment of Col. Washington as commander of it. Mr, Sam- 
uel Adams did not assent or dissent. 

When John Adams got the floor, he moved the adopt- 
ion of the army and went on to speak of its command- 
er, eulogizing a certain gentleman from Virginia "who 
could unite the cordial exertions of all the colonies bet- 
ter than any other person." Though no name was 
spoken all knew he meant Washington, who was so start- 
led that he rose and went out. 

Some said it was a doubtful measure to put a southern- 
er over an army of New England troops now doing ad- 
mirably under their own officers. Pendleton of Virgin- 
ia especially urged this, followed by Sherman of Connec- 



JOHN ADAMS. 43 

ticut; and Gushing of Massachusetts fell into line with 
them. Hancock, the presiding officer, was ambitions 
for the place. Other aspirants might be jealous and be- 
come hostile to Adams; but he never feared enemies 
when sure he was right. The vote was not hurried; Ad- 
ams left the formal — ^ 
nomination for some 
one else. On the 1 5th 
of June, Thomas 
Johnson of Maryland 
nominated Washing- 
ton, and he was unan- 
imously elected, and 
left Philadelphia on 
the 2ist. 

Mr. Adams had 
now gained two im- 
portant points: he 
had had the Congress to advise Massachusetts to estab- 
lish an insurgent or rebel government; and next to adopt 
and organize an army that was at war with King George. 
If this belligerency was not independence, what was it? 
Nor had he consulted Massachusetts or New England 
about making a Virginian Commander over her troops. 
Considering the local jealousies, this v/as a brave and 
bold deed. Certainly three New Englanders were at 
first against him in the Congress itself, and two from his 
own state. But he trusted the intelligence, liberality 
and courtesy of his people whom he knew well. His 
grandson in his "Life of John Adams" says: 




John Hancock 



44 



JOHN ADAMS. 



"In the life of Mr. Adams, more than in that of most 
men, occur instances of this calm but decided assumption 
of a fearful responsibility in critical moments. But what 

is yet more re- 
markable is that 
they were at- 
tended with a 
uniformly favor- 
able result." 

The Ameri- 
can people saw 
in his conduct 
in thisCongress, 
in the war, and 
in his acts as 
ambassador or 
envoy, such ev- 
idences of pure 
patriotism, just 
courage, and 
high sagacity, 
that they twice 
put him next to 
Wash i ngt o n 
and once made 
him head of the 
government. When he was defeated, it was not from 
loss of popular confidence .so much as by dissensions 
within his own party. 

The result of his moves at this time *'set the seal of 




Battle of Bunker Hill and Death of Warren. Bronze 
Door on the Capitol, Washington. D. C. 



JOHN ADAMS. 45 

■wisdom," says Mr. Morse, in his "Life of John Adams," 
"upon his fearless assumption of one of the greatest po- 
litical risks recorded in the world's history." And Mr. 
Adams said that the appointment of Washington would 
have a great ei^ect in securing the union of the colonies; 
and further, that he had got them all as deep into the 
rebellion as Massachusetts herself. While he was doing 
this, red Bunker Hill showed that Yankee farmers could 
face and defeat England's veterans. 

Soon after, Mr. Adams wrote confidential letters to his 
wife and to Gen. James Warren, which were taken from 
the carrier by the British and published by them, to 
create suspicion and ill-feeling. His private opinions 
were too strong for public use; they made lasting ene- 
mies. To his wife he said in a postscript: 

"I wish I had given you a complete history, from the 
beginning to the end, of the behavior of my compatriots. 
No mortal tale can equal it. I will tell you in future, 
but you shall keep it secret. The fidgets, the whims, 
the caprice, the vanity, the superstition, the irritability 

of some of us is enough to "; language failed him at 

that point. 

So much for one barrel of his gun: it seemed aimed 
at the whole body of Congress; every man might take 
his share of the shot as he pleased, or generously give it 
all to his neighbors. The other barrel was aimed more 
precisely at individuals, but included the seekers for con- 
ciliation. Gen. Warren was president of the provincial 
congress. 

"I am determined to write freely to you this time. A 



46 JOHN ADAMS. 

certain great fortune and piddling genius [this hit John 
Dickinson, leader of the party of delay,] whose fame has 
been trumpeted so loudly, has given a silly cast to our 
whole proceedings. We are between hawk and buzzard. 
We ought to have had in our hands, a month ago, the 
whole legislative, executive, and judicial of the whole 
continent, and have completely modeled a constitution; 
to have raised a naval power, and opened all our ports 
wide; to have arrested every friend of [the British] gov- 
ernment on the continent, and held them as hostages 
for the poor victims in Boston; and then opened the 
door as wide as possible for peace and reconciliation. 
After this, they might have petitioned, negotiated, ad- 
dressed, etc., if they would. Is all this extravagant ? Is 

it wild ? Is it not the soundest policy? You 

observe in your letter the oddity of a great man [Gen. 
Lee]. He is a queer creature; but you must love his 
dogs if you love him, and forgive a thousand whims for 
the sake of the soldier and the scholar." 

The reader will not wonder at the personal enmities 
these letters caused, Dickinson ceased to recognize him, 
and was his enemy as long as he lived (1808). Others 
of those that had "the fidgets, the whims," shunned 
him and were cold; even friends showed disapprobation. 
John Hancock drew away from the Adamses and toward 
the conservatives. The moderates thought Adams had be- 
trayed the plans of radicals to hurry on independence. 
The English regarded the letters as evidence of long- 
planned rebellion. The worst effect was the suspicion 
which immediately attached to all his proposals, until 



JOHN ADAMS. 47 

independence became inevitable. But Adams was so 
shrewd and so strong that he was indispensable npon 
important committees. 

Meanwhile Dickinson's "Olive Branch" conld not 
gain even an official reception in England, since it came 
from a rebel body, and, as C. F. Adams suggests, would 
look to George III much more like a highwayman's 
pistol. 

New Hampshire asked advice, October i8th, about 
fonning some government for order and justice. Adams 
joined in the debate, urging the need of some general 
advice to all the colonies. He argued that the people in 
their towns should elect delegates to a convention which 
should form a constitution, distributing powers to three 
branches, governors, councils and representatives, with 
independent judiciary; and that this constitution should 
be referred to the people for adoption and confirmation; 
and that officers should be elected thereunder. 

He was one of the committee to whom the matter was 
referred, whose report advised a popular government, 
Nov. 3d. The next day a similar resolution was passed 
for South Carolina, Adams trying in both cases to bring 
in use of the word state for colony^ and America for the 
colonies. He was opposed to a legislature of a single 
house and an executive and judiciary made of commit- 
tees, which was Samuel Adams's ideal. 

Adams had gone home during the recess in August, 
but had little rest, as he had been put on the executive 
council of Massachusetts. 

It took him just a fortnight to reach Philadelphia, 



48 JOHN ADAMS. 

Sept. 13th. Delegates from Georgia came in. The 
moderates had control, but had to move forward, adopt 
a plan of confederation, establish a post office system 
with Franklin as postmaster, create a system of dealing 
with Indians, appoint treasurers, direct military affairs, 
set up an army hospital, all of these acts implying inde- 
pendence and rebellion. Massachusetts, 'men were left 
out of committees. Dangerous sickness invaded Adams's 
family, an epidemic attacking Braintree and vicinity. His 
brother died in the army. His wife was exhausted with 
anxiety and watching. But he felt that his position was 
that of an officer in an army in front of the foe: he must 
not go home. 

Mr. Adams's policy suddenly came uppermost. Rhode 
Island on Oct. 3d asked Congress to create a fleet. The 
proposition was ridiculed, especially by southern dele- 
gates. But in a few days news was brought that two 
vessels were on the way from London to Canada with 
arms and powder. 

A committee of three New Englanders was appointed, 
including Adams, to report on the emergency. They 
advised that Massachusetts be asked to put two of her 
armed vessels under Washington's command, and that 
he dispatch them to intercept those from London and 
any other transports carrying military stores; and that 
Connecticut and Rhode Island be asked to help. A re- 
port to this effect was adopted Oct. 13th, in spite of 
much eloquence. 

By Oct. 30th, another committee on naval -affairs was 
created, Mr. Adams being one, and a fleet of four ves- 



JOHN ADAMS. 49 

sels was ordered, Nov. 17th, a corps of marines was or- 
dered. Nov. 25th, the beginning of a naval code was 
reported by Mr, Adams and adopted. Dec. 13th, the 
building of thirteen frigates was ordered; and Dec. 2 2d, 
Esek Hopkins of Rhode Island was made commander of 
a fleet of five vessels. So, largely through the push and 
energy of John Adams, a navy was begun. 

One important event helped him ; about the first day 
of November, a ship had brought the news of the fail- 
ure of Dickinson's last "Olive- Branch" petition. 
Thenceforth the moderates were rebels as much as the 
Adamses^ the Lees, Washington, Henry and Hancock, 
They must carry on the war or surrender without terms. 
This changed the aspect of affairs very much. 

For John Dickinson we may find some palliation, if 
not excuse. He loved his country, but acted like a cow- 
ard. The proprietary government of Pennsylvania had 
somewhat protected the people from collision with roy- 
al authority. 

Pennsylvania had no charter to lose, no rights depen- 
dent upon a royal grant and promise to its inhabitants 
under seal. Then, too, it was originally a Quaker colo- 
ny; and no man could grow up in it without being af- 
fected by its peace-loving doctrines and ways. But 
worst of all were the influences of his family. 

While Adams was supported in his course by his rela- 
tives and his brave wife, Dickinson's family was a drag 
upon him. Mr. Adams says: "That gentleman's moth- 
er and wife were continually distressing him with their 
remonstrances. His mother said to him, 'Johnny, you 



50 JOHN ADAMS. 

will be hanged; your estate will be forfeited and confis- 
cated; you will leave your excellent wife a widow, and 
your children orphans, beggars and infamous.' From 
my soul- 1 pitied Mr. Dickinson. I made his case my 
own. If my mother and my wife had expressed such 
sentiments to me, I was certain that if they did not un- 
man me and make me an apostate, they -would make me 
the most miserable man alive." (Works, Vol. 11^ p. 
408.) On a previous page he had written, "Mr. Dickin- 
son is very modest, delicate and timid." 

The influence of the Quakers and of the Quaker state 
in which they had predominance politically, was thrown 
then against the revolution, because it was leading to 
war; and because Massachusetts, the colony in which 
they had suffered most for their religion, was leading in 
it. A leading man among them, Israel Pemberton, in a 
conference with Adams and others, objected to a union 
of the colonies because of laws on religion in Massachu- 
setts and other parts of New England. 

. Nor should we forget, in trying to account for the in- 
difference and backwardness of New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania and Delaware, that there was a larger 
share of un-English elements in their population than 
elsewhere. The first settlers of all these except Penn- 
sylvania were Dutch and Swedes, foreigners to English 
. law and ideas. 

The revolutionary party were demanding their rights 
as Englishmen, referring back to Magna Charta, the 
Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights, as well as to 
charters granted by English kings. These were not 



JOHN ADAMS. 51 

household words to a generation whose grandfathers or 
great-grandfathers were conquered by England, or who 
came like the numerous Pennsylvania Germans from 
Germany itself. Many did join the Revolution earnest- 
ly, as did the French infusion of Huguenots in South 
Carolina; but the masses were different from New Eng- 
landers and Virginians. 

Adams now writes: "Our coimsels have been hitherto 
too fluctuating; one day, measures for carrying on the 
war were adopted; the next, nothing must be done that 
would widen 'the unhappy breach between Great Britain 
and the colonies. ' As these different ideas have pre- 
vailed, our conduct has been directed accordingly 

Thank God, the happy day which I have long wished 
for is at length arrived: the southern colonies no longer 
entertain jealousies of the northern; they no longer look 
back to Great Britain; they are convinced that they 
have been pursuing a phantom, and that their only safe- 
ty is a vigorous determined defense. One of the gentle- 
men who had been most sanguine for pacific measures 
and very jealous of the New England colonies, address- 
ing me in the style of Brother Rebel, told me he was 
now ready to join us heartily. 'We have got,' says he, 
'a sufficient answer to our petition. I want nothing 
more, but am ready to declare ourselves independent, 

send ambassadors,' etc. , and much more Our res-« 

olutions will henceforth be spirited, clear and decisive." 

Truly the ignorance and self-conceit of King George 
and his ministers did more for independence than the 
eloquence of Patrick Henry and the arguments of Ad- 



52 



JOHN ADAMS. 



ams. They could not move Pennsylvania; he did. But 
Adams was not trusted by all; when he went home in 
December, Lynch of South Carolina wrote to Washing- 
ton, "Whether 
his intents be 
wicked or not, 
I doubt much. 
He should be 
watched.'''' 

Probably be- 
fore the news 
of the failure of 
theOliveBranch 
in September or 
October, Mr. 
Adams endeav- 
ored to have an 
embassy sent to 
France, with 
powers to repre- 
sent the com- 
bined colonies. 
Mr. Chase of Maryland made the motion, as they had 
agreed; and Adams seconded it, and spoke on the mo- 
tion and proposed substitutes, keeping his temper well 
•under, and winning even from his steadfast opponents, 
Dickinson and Duane, credit for greatest knowledge of 
the subject and for eloquence. His lawyer-like mode of 
reasoning rarely rose to eloquence; but sometimes his 
deep earnestness brought into his speech his ready stores 




Samuel Chase. 



JOHN ADAMS. 53 

of learning and a fiery rhetoric that was not common. 
Indeed he was more likely to offend by his impolitic 
way of blurting out his real opinions too bluntly to 
please, with severe criticisms upon others. In this dis- 
cussion he gave his views of a proper policy for Amer- 
ica: she should make no alliances, make commercial 
treaties only, and avoid connection with European poli- 
tics and wars. The proposition failed then; but seeds of 
thought and of later action were sown. 

In December Adams took leave of absence and went 
home. As member of the provincial council he was at 
once very busy, and prepared a proclamation to the peo- 
ple of his own state which has many of the ideas of the 
Declaration of Independence, and may give us a notion 
of what that would have been had he written it. 

The council appointed him Chief Justice of Massachu- 
setts. He accepted the appointment, which it would 
have pleased him to fill*^ but he never entered upon its 
duties, because they also re-appointed him delegate to the 
Continental Congress for the year 1776, and gave him 
Elbridge Gerry as colleague in place of Cushing, resigned. 
They left home Jan. 24th, 1776; Gerry presented his 
credentials Feb. 9th, and the instructions given by Mas- 
sachusetts, which were: — 

'''■Resolved^ that they [the five delegates], or any one 
or more of them, are hereby fully empowered with the 
delegates from the other American colonies to concert, 
direct and order such further measures as shall to them 
appear best calculated for the establishment of right and 
liberty to the American colonies upon a basis permanent 



j4 JOHN ADAMS. 

and secure against the power and art of the British Ad- 
ministration, and guarded against any future encroach- 
ments of their enemies; with power to adjourn to such 
times and places as shall appear most conducive to the 
public safety and advantage. " 

Mr. Adams returned to find the Congress in a period 
of discouragement: "There is a deep anxiety, a kind of 
thoughtful melancholy, and in some a lowness of spirits 
approaching to despondency, prevailing through the 
southern colonies at present." 

Why not? They had hoped and hoped for reconcilia- 
tion with the King: now they saw before them the con- 
tinuance of a war with the greatest powei; in the world. 
But Adams had learned that public opinion is apt to 
move in waves of discouragement and exultant expecta- 
tion. 

He prophesied, "In this, or a similar condition, we 
shall remain, I think, until late in the spring, when some 
critical event will take place, perhaps sooner. But the 
Arbiter of events, the Sovereign of the world, only knows 
which way the torrent will be turned. Judging by ex- 
perience, by probabilities and by all appearances, I con- 
clude it will roll on to dominion and glory, though the 
circumstances and consequences may be bloody. In such 
great changes and commotions, individuals are but atoms. 
It is scarcely worth while to consider what the conse- 
quences will be to us. .What will be the effects upon 
present and future millions, and millions of millions, is 
a question very interesting to benevolence, natural and 
christian. God grant they may, and I firmly believe 



JOHN ADAMS. 



55 



March 23d, 
April 6th. 



and 
Ad- 



they will be happy." Events went on toward indepen- 
dence. The British were beaten at Charleston and evac- 
uated Boston. Paine wrote "Common Sense," a pam- 
phlet of great influence, so much in the line of Adams's 
talk that some thought it his. 

Congress authorized privateering, 
opened American ports to all nations, 
anis was sarcastic upon those 
who would not see the na- 
ture of these acts and said 
we had had half a war, now 
advanced to three-quarters 
of a war. 

"This is not independen- 
cy, you know. Nothing like 
it. If a post or two more 
should bring you unlimited 
trade of all nations and a po- 
lite invitation to all nations 
to trade with you, take care 
that you do not call it or 

think it independency. No such matter. Independency 
is a hobgoblin of such frightful mien that it would throw 
a delicate person into fits to look it in the face." 

Among the difficulties of the situation were the rather 
aristocratic colonial governments in the middle and 
southern colonies, some of which were still proprietary. 
Movements were made here and there for more demo- 
cratic forms; there was little reason for change if all 
were to yield to the mother country by submission. 




Henry Lee, Governor of Virgrinia 

Known as "Lignc Horse Harry. ' 

Born 175G. Died 1818. 



56 JOHN ADAMS. 

In Virginia the Lees, Patrick Henry, George Wythe 
and other advocates of Independence determined to pop- 
ularize the local government. No other in America had 
studied the science of government and the various forms 
for reaching political ends so much and so thoroughly as 
John Adams had done: and the practical tendency of his 
mind made his advice valuable. Jefferson and Samuel 
Adams were theoretical, and full of that false republican 
fear of reposing real governing power any where, lest it 
should be abused: a jealous fear which leads, if it works 
to its natural results, to an anarchy that invites despot- 
ism.^ 

It has been the good fortune of America to be neither 
Hamiltonian nor Jeffersonian. When Jefferson said that 
the tree of liberty needs frequently to be watered with 
blood, and that rebellion is a good thing and necessary 
in the political world, he showed that he lacked the 
constructive power to conceive a government which 
should be at once firm enough for civil order and 
elastic and changable enough for liberty. 

Hamilton's schemes missed the same good qualities in 
an opposite way. Practical people have found ways be- 
tween the two; and John Adams, misunderstood and 
called 'an aristocrat, was of this practical sort. Both Jef- 
ferson and Adams were aristocrats to this degree, that 
they believed the wisest and best should be chosen to 
lead, to plan, to judge, to execute. 

Richard Henry Lee talked often with Adams on the 
principles and details of government, and asked him to 
give him a definite plan for use. Adams gave him a 



JOHN ADAMS. 57 

short letter containing the main features of such a sys- 
tem as he approved. Lee showed the letter: copies were 
taken and circulated. Others applied to Mr. Adams; 
whereupon he wrote a pamphlet, "Thoughts on Govern- 
ment applicable to the Present State of the American 
Colonies. In a letter from a Gentleman to his Friend.", 
This, having the form of a letter to Wythe, is in "The 
Works of John Adams." The circulation of it in Vir- 
ginia elicited a reply from the aristocratic party. Both 
were before the convention which adopted the constitu- 
tion of June, 1776. The aristocratic party failed. 

North Carolina asked his advice, which was given in 
like manner. Her constitution of 1776 remained un- 
changed till 1836. His influence appeared in the New 
York constitution. His plans would have made all the 
states independent of each other, to be united in a con- 
federation limited to a few objects: he had not studied 
upon a plan of union very much. The influence of 
these examples ran through all the states that formed 
new constitutions. 

Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and New York 
had especially instructed their representatives to oppose 
all propositions for independence. Even New Hamp- 
shire was an obstacle. A new plan w^as devised. 

Samuel Chase went home to Maryland and organized 
a series of local meetings, a fire in the rear upon the 
conservatives, which brought that State over. Caesar 
Rodney did the same in Delaware. Jonathan Dickinson 
Sergeant resigned and returned to New Jersey where 
the Assembly was in session: he secured the election of 



58 JOHN ADAMS. 

new delegates who would arrive July ist, and would, as 
he said, "vote plump." 

As early as April 1 2th North Carolina had authorized 
her delegates to vote for independence and foreign rela- 
tions. The Virginia Convention, at work upon her new 
constitution, on May 15th, instructed her delegates to 
propose independence. But still Pennsylvania was a 
perfect Gibraltar of opposition. It would not be good 
politics to win a bare majority or even a majority of 
eight to five with such a great opposition in the heart of 
the land. Pennsylvania must be the keystone of the 
arch of union. Public opinion there was in favor of in- 
dependence: but the proprietary government of the 
Penn family sent the delegation in which Dickinson, 
Robert Morris, Willing, Humphrey and Morton outvoted 
Franklin and Wilson: Wilson had changed from nega- 
tive to affirmative vote. 

A movement in another direction outflanked the Penn 
government. June 7th, Friday ,_ Richard Henry Lee 
presented resolutions to declare independence. John 
Adams, as arranged, seconded them. The debate of 
that day, Saturday and Monday, showed that there were 
votes of four New England States, Virginia and North 
Carolina and one other Southern State in the affirma- 
tive. That would not do. The question was adjourned 
to July ist. The next day, Jefferson, John Adams, 
Franklin, Sherman and R. R. Livingston were appoint- 
ed a committee on the resolution. On the 12th Samuel 
Adams was made one of a committee on Confederation, 
and John Adams one of a committee on treaties to be pro- 



JOHN ADAMS. $9 

posed with foreign powers, where he was securely bal- 
lasted with Dickinson, Morris and Harrison of Virginia: 
and at the same time a Board of War and Ordnance was 
made of John Ad- 
ams, Sherman, 
Harrison, Wilson 
and Edward Rut- 
ledge. 

Important was 
a previous com- 
mittee, May 25th, 
to confer with 
Washington on 
military affairs and 
plans, on which 
was John Adams. 
From their action 
grew the "commit- 
tee on spies, ' ' John 
Adams, Jefferson, 
Rutledge, Wilson 
and Livingston. 
Their resolutions, adopted June 17th, declared every 
person in any colony, whether resident or transient, to 
be subject to its laws: then the second resolution as- 
sumed independence and sovereignty most fully: 

'•'■Resolved^ That all persons, members of or owing al- 
legiance to any of the United Colonies, as before des- 
cribed, who shall levy war against any of the said col- 
onies within the same, or be adherent to the King of 







i 




1 


I 






pp^ 


:;:' /. 


• 


1^1 












1 






1 


m 


j 


■tS^^H 



Robert R. Livingston. 
Born 1741. Died 1813. 



6o JOHN ADAMS. 

Great Britain or other enemies of the said colonies or 
any of them, within the same, giving to him or them aid 
and comfort, are guilty of Treason against such colony." 

The next resolution advised each colony to punish 
such treason, which might be mere loyalty to King 
George. Surely France was no more independent than 
the power that defined and denounced loyalty as treason. 

Mr. Adams was getting worn down with committee 
work, debates and planning. 

The movement that destroyed the proprietary power 
in Pennsylvania began with Adams on the sixth of May. 
The resolution as finally adopted. May loth, stood thus: 

'■^ Resolved^ That it be recommended to the respective 
assemblies and conventions of the United Colonies, 
where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their 
affairs hath been hitherto established, to adopt such gov- 
ernment as shall, in the opinion of the representatives 
of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety 
of their constituents in particular and America in gen- 
eral." 

Adams, Lee and Rutledge were made a committee to 
prepare a preamble to this. The preamble, adopted 
May 15th, declared: 

"It appears utterly unreconcilable to reason and good 
conscience for the people of these colonies now to take 
the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support of 
any government under the crown of Great Britain; and 
it is necessary that the exercise of every kind of author- 
ity under the said crown should be totally suppressed; 
and all the powers of govermneiit [should be] exerted un- 



JOHN ADAMS. 6i 

der the authority of the people of the colonies^'''' etc., etc. 

The proprietary government of Pennsylvania was cer- 
tainly not "exerted under the authority of the people;" 
and when the preamble and resolution appeared in the 
newspapers of the i6th, the whigs of Philadelphia began 
to consult what should be done in consequence of the 
dissolution of their government. The pressure of public 
opinion and the movement for a convention allowed the 
committee of conference to express a strong opinion 
against the assembly's hindering resolutions of instruc- 
tion; and the vote of Pennsylvania was substantially 
gained. , 

Mr. Adams wrote respecting the preamble and resolu- 
tion, "Yesterday the Gordian knot was cut." He re- 
gretted that it had not been done a year sooner. He 
was probably wrong in that. He was ready; but the 
people and the political leaders needed education which 
the year gave them. The long debate attracted atten- 
tion, stirred the consciences and raised the aspirations of 
the people, and made mankind ready for the verdict 
that justice and reason pronounced on the great conten- 
tion. The saints may cry, "How long, O Lord!" but' 
God does not hurry. 

Adams, after hearing a sermon on the 17th that com- 
pared George HI to the Pharaoh of the Exodus, wrote to 
his wife that in considering the events just passed and 
his little share in the great things, and in looking at the 
probable future, he felt an indescribable awe. 

The vote was still to be taken, though the result was 
foreseen. It was agreed that it should appear unani- 



62 • JOHN ADAMS. 

mous. Dickinson and Morris were ready to absent them- 
selves, to let the vote of their State appear affirmative. 
But the delegates from New Jersey, new men, wished 
to hear the grounds of the important action rehearsed. 

Lee's resolution was called up on the appointed day. 
There is no record of a line of the debate. It is known 
that two men spoke. Dickinson, loving his country 
without reserve, constitutionally cautious, even timid, 
unwilling to burden himself with so great responsibility, 
yet hating the tyranny of king and parliament as bitter- 
ly as the Adamses or the Lees, in a final speech cleared 
himself of accountability for evil results which must 
come in the winning of the good that was desired. 

The debating talent was on the negative side. Dick- 
inson, Wilson his colleague, who voted however with 
Franklin at last, R. R. Livingston of New York, who 
had ceased to oppose, and Edward Rutledge of South 
Carolina, could finely set forth that side. Perhaps no 
one of them spoke. On the other side. Dr. Witherspoon 
presented his arguments clearly, but heavily. Lee had 
been called home. Wythe and others could speak sensi- 
bly, but not with force of manner. Jefferson, mighty 
with the pen, was no speaker. 

It was the great occasion for John Adams. He is 
rarely enrolled among great orators. His writings rare- 
ly suggest eloquence. But eloquence is often matter of 
occasion. The effect produced upon the hearers is the 
supreme test. 

"Chatham, Patrick Henry, Mirabeau and John Adams 
will be handed down as great orators mainly by the con- 



JOHN ADAMS. 63 

curring testimony of those who witnessed the effects 
they produced," says C. F. Adams. 

Adams was elated by the consciousness of victory 
within his grasp, filled with the facts and reasons of his 
cause, mighty in the resources of his classical, philosoph- 
ical and legal education and reading, and fired with the 
enthusiasm of his grand cause. 

Dickinson's speech must have provoked him by its 
repetition of old oft-answered 
assumptions and reasons, by 
its lugubrious vaticinations? 
and by its timid and hope- 
less lamentations. Jefferson 
afterward spoke of "the deep 
conceptions and nervous 
style, which gave Adams a 
powder of thought and ex- 

1 . 1 1,1 Home of Patrick Henry in Virginia 

pression which moved the 

members from their seats;" and he styles him the 
"Colossus of Independence." Richard Stockton varied 
the figure: he was "the Atlas of Independence." Other 
Virginians, accustomed to the florid and impulsive ora- 
tory of the South, filled "every mouth in the Ancient 
Dominion with praises due to the comprehensiveness of 
his views, the force of his arguments, and the boldness 
of his patriotism. " 

It is strange that he impressed others, but not himself. 
He wrote to Chase that evening speaking of the debate 
as an idle waste of time: nothing. said that had not been 
said six months before. lyike a genuine Yankee, he 




64 JOHN ADAMS. 

looked only at the intellectual and practical side, and 
thought naught of the tongue of fire which sat upon 
him and loosed his speech while others wondered. 

One of the greatest of American orators wrote fifty 
years later such speech as he thought Adams would 
have made. At the close of this biography the reader will 
find Webster's version of it, probably less vehement 
than the original. 

The day after the debate, July 2d, the formal vote was 
taken on Lee's resolution: it is brief, but enough: it 
broke the chain. 

'''■Resolved^ That these United Colonies are, and of 
right ought to be, free and independent States; that they 
are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; 
and that all political connection between them and the 
State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dis- 
solved. ' ' 

The more formal document which we know as the 
Declaration was already reported to the Congress, Friday, 
June 28th. The preparation had been referred to a com- 
mittee, Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Sherman and 
R. R. Livingston. The writing was left by the rest to 
Adams or Jefferson: in a little contest of courtesy each 
referred it to the other. Jefferson wrote it; Adams and 
Franklin suggested slight amendments, so slight that 
Adams did not remember that he had offered any. 

It was debated after Lee's resolution passed, Adams 
defending it against criticism and alteration, Jefferson 
sitting in silence. It was amended, adopted and an- 
nounced Thursday, July fourth. The signing of the en- 



JOHN ADAMS. 65 

grossed copy took place later, several signing it who 
were not even delegates when it was adopted. 

Adams wrote to his wife, July 3d, "Yesterday the 
greatest question was decided which ever was debated in 
America; and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be 
decided among men. A resolution was passed without 
one dissenting colony, that these United Colonies are, 
and of right ought to be free and independent states; and 
and as such they have, and of right ought to have full 
power to make war, conclude peace, establish commerce 
and to do all other acts and things which other States 
may rightfully do. [The reader will see that he quotes 
partly and by memory from the later document.] You 
will see in a few days a declaration setting forth the 
causes which have impelled us to this mighty revolution, 
and the reasons which will justify it in the sight of God 
and man. A plan of confederation will be taken up in 
a few days. 

"When I look back to the year 1761 and recollect the 
argument concerning Writs of Assistance in the superior 
court, which I have hitherto considered as the com- 
mencement of the controversy between Great Britain and 
America, and run through the whole period from that 
time to this, and recollect the series of political events, 
the chain of causes and effects, I am surprised at the 
suddenness as well as greatness of this revolution. Brit- 
ain has been filled with folly, and America with wisdom. 
At least, this is my judgment. Time must determine. 
It is the will of Heaven that the two countries should 
be sundered forever. It may be the will of Heaven that 



66 JOHN ADAMS. 

America shall suffer calamities still more wasting, and 

distresses yet more dreadful But I must submit 

all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence, in 
which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly be- 
lieve. 

"Had a declaration of independency been made seven 
months ago, it would have been attended with many 
great and glorious effects. We might before this hour 
have formed alliances with foreign states. We should 
have mastered Quebec and been in possession of Can- 
ada But on the other hand, the delay of 

this declaration to this time has many great advantages 
attending it. The hopes of reconciliation which were 
fondly entertained by multitudes of honest and well-mean- 
ing, though weak and mistaken people, have been grad- 
ually, and at last totally extinguished. 

"Time has been given for the whole people maturely 
to consider the great question of independence, and to 
ripen their judgments, dissipate their fears, and allure 
their hopes, by discussing it in newspapers and pamph- 
lets, by debating it in assemblies, conventions, commit- 
tees of safety and inspection, in town and county meet- 
ings, as well as in private conversations, so that the 
whole people in every colony of the thirteen, have now 
adopted it as their own act. This will cement the Un- 
ion, and avoid those heats and perhaps convulsions which 
might have been occasioned by such a declaration six 
months ago. 

"But the day is past. The second day of July, 1776, 
will be the most memorable epocha in the history of 



JOHN ADAMS. 67 

of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebra- 
ted by succeeding generations as the great anniversary 
festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of 
deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. 

"It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with 
shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illumina- 
tions, from one end of this continent to the other, from 
this time forward, forevermore. 

*'You will think me transported with enthusiasm; but 
I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and 
treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration 
and support and defend these States. Yet through all 
the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and 
glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the 
means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's 
transaction, even although we should rue it, which I 
trust in God we shall not." 

But the Fourth of July superseded the second; and the 
jubilant patriot could not anticipate the present desecra- 
tion of the anniversary, which makes it in every city a 
day of apprehension, of fires and accidents, of senseless 
noise, and the racket and sputter of the fire-cracker of 
the half-civilized ''Heathen Chinee!" 

Adams knew well that independence was declared, 
but was yet to be won. He was neither fanatic nor en- 
thusiast. His stubborn force was paired with know- 
ledge of means to be used and of ends to be gained. He 
was more earnest and pressing than any other man, and 
had reached his aim by policy as well as by statesman- 
ship. Seeing when he entered Congress that that body 



68 JOHN ADAMS. 

could not be hastened, he worked generally through oth- 
ers, favoring even the remotest step in the path to inde- 
pendence. 

Many measures adopted months before logically im- 
plied independence; but he dared not even say that 
aloud. Mr. Morse in his "Life of John Adams" often 
accuses Adams of a lack of restraint of his tongue. One 
who said so much must often have said too much; but 
he must have undergone agonies of self-restraint. His 
severe remarks about others were generally in his pri- 
vate letters. Had he blurted out all he thought, he 
might have incurred the sarcastic reproach which Low- 
ell flung upon "Philip Vandal;" that is Wendell Phil- 
lips; "he loves his fellow men so well that he has not a 
word softer than a brickbat for a single mother's son of 
them." 

At this time Adams wrote to his friend and helper, 
Samuel Chase of Maryland: — 

"If you imagine that I expect this Declaration will 
ward off calamities from this country, you are much mis- 
taken. A bloody conflict we are destined to endure. 

This has been my opinion from the beginning 

Every political event since the 19th of April, 1775, has 
confirmed me in this opinion. If you imagine that I 
flatter myself with happiness and halcyon days after a 
separation from Great Britain, you are mistaken again. 
I do not expect that our new government will be so qui- 
et as I wish, nor that happy harmony, confidence and 
affection [will exist] between the colonies, that every 
good American ought to study and pray for, for a long 



JOHN ADAMS. 69 

time. But freedom is a counterbalance for poverty, dis- 
cord, and war, and more. It is your hard lot and mine 
to be called into life at such a time. Yet even these 
times have their pleasures. ' ' 

Mr. Adams's supreme effort in the second Continental 
Congress was over, successfully completed. He had 
spoken of it as the very end and purpose of his existence; 
and said he would be willing, that done, to say with old 
Simeon, ^'■Ntnic dimt/ii'sy But he was too valuable a 
member to be let go easily; and while there was real 
hard work to be done, he was willing to remain, health 
and strength permitting. 

The sessions of the second Continental Congress be- 
gun May 10, 1776, and continued till it adjourned Dec. 
12, 1777, a period of 582 days. Mr. Adams remained in 
it till a month before its adjournment. He proposed 
that Massachusetts should enlarge her delegation, so that 
the Congress should have sufficient attendance while the 
delegates could be relieved by periods of vacation. His 
work may be inferred from his being on ninety commit- 
tees by the record, and on others not recorded. He was 
chairman of at least twenty-five. 

On one of these he served very unwillingly. Gen. 
Sullivan, taken prisoner on Long Island, came on parole 
with a verbal message from Admiral Lord Richard 
Howe, who wished to see some leading members of the 
Congress. Adams wanted to pay no attention to the 
message, being sure it could do no good to see him; but 
Franklin, John Adams and Edward Rutledge were sent 
as a committee. They met Lord Howe on Staten Island 



70 JOHN ADAMS. 

Sept. nth. He received them very courteously, but 
had no terms to offer except pardon after absolute sub- 
mission. They reported, Sept. 17th, the impossible 
terms. They had ceased to be rebels, and were citizens 
of the free United States. Like most of England's 
moves, the concessions came too late and were too small. 

As the business so far as it was national was conduct- 
ed entirely by a congress of delegates, there was no ex- 
ecutive or judiciary except the Congress itself and the 
committees it created. There was no War Department, 
no Secretary of War; there was only a committee called 
sometimes the Board of War. We read of Washington's 
troubles as commander-in-chief : the Board had all his 
troubles except the tactical and strategical ones. There 
were constant and annoying jealousies between North, 
Middle and South. These were individual jealousies 
about precedence, appointments, advancements. All 
these things came into the Board of War. Great mis- 
takes were made, as in the treatment of Schuyler, Ar- 
nold, Gates and Lee. 

Nor could this body understand and appreciate the 
great military as well as personal qualities of Washing- 
ton. It has taken nearly a century to show that his 
name must be ranked, not indeed with the most brilliant, 
as Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, Napoleon; but in the 
next class among the very best. He is called the Fabi- 
us of America: and Americans do not like Fabianism. 
They cry, "On to Richmond!" "On to Havana !" How 
unfortunate it is that in our country our greatest strate- 
gists, naval and military, are only editors and corres- 




Gen, George Washington. 
(From Portrait of C. W. Peale.) 



72 JOHN ADAMS. 

pondents of newspapers ! One of this sort lately wrote 
that Washington never won a battle, meaning, doubtless, 
a pitched battle. How great must be the genius of a 
general that can win a war of eight years without win- 
ning a pitched battle ! But Washington was not a mere 
F'abius, winning only by delay. With his small, ill- 
armed, ill-provided army, he could strike quick and 
heavy blows, so that all the English generals feared 
him. But in his own day few saw how great he was. 

Mr. Morse, in his "Life of Adams," thinks an exces- 
sive vanity on the part of Adams kept him from appre- 
ciating Washington. He calls his relative estimate of 
Washington "his unconquerable blunder, originating in 
1776-77, before he left Congress, and acquiring much 
greater proportions afterward." But how great had 
Washington shown himself to be by December, 1777? 
To most people, his failures at Long Island, Germantown 
and Brandywine, and the loss of Philadelphia would 
have seemed to balance the success at Boston, and the 
brilliant moves at Trenton and Princeton. Surely Ad- 
ams may be excused and not charged with an "uncon- 
querable blunder." 

Mr. Adams indignantly repelled the charge that he 
had been hostile to Washington, a charge which he 
ascribed to "that insolent blasphemer of things sacred, 
and transcendent libeler of all that is good, Tom Paine." 
He says thaL after his appointment as ambassador, Gen. 
Knox called upon him to learn how he felt toward Wash- 
ington. "I answered that I thought him 

the most important character of that time among us, for 



JOHN ADAMS. 73 

he was the center of our union. .... I should do my 
utmost to support his character at all times and in all 
places." The Gates faction was no doubt glad to claim 
Adams; and Lafayette got that impression. 

While Adams was on the Board of War, Oct ist, 1776, 
he moved for a committee on the establishment of a mil- 
itary academy, and was one of the committee. From 
this suggestion came our West Point Military Academy. 
When Massachusetts officers complained of neglect and 
of the overlooking of their merits, he showed them how 
impolitic they had been in various ways. He reminded 
them of the panic of New England regiments at Brook- 
lyn. He said there were political reasons for appoint- 
ment of more southern than northern generals. He la- 
mented the jealousy toward New England which had af- 
fected the policy of the United States. 

"Without it Mr. Washington would never have com- 
manded our armies; nor Mr. Jefferson have been the au- 
thor of the Declaration of Independence; nor Mr. Rich- 
ard Henry Lee, the mover of it; nor Mr. Chase, the mov- 
er of foreign connections; nor had Mr. Johnson 

ever been the nominator of Washington for General." 
This he wrote in 1822; but he had felt it in 1776. He 
really had been obliged to stand back and get others to 
move his measures. 

Mr. Adams took a vacation to rest from over-work, 
Oct. 13th, 1776: he left home to go to the Congress at 
Baltimore, Jan. 9th, 1777. His route shows the diffi- 
culty of travel. He went on horseback through Con- 
necticut to Fishkill, N. Y. ; thence up to Poughkeepsie, 



74 JOHN ADAMS. 

and crossed the Hudson on the ice; thence he rode to 
New Windsor, near Newburgh, and through Sussex 
county, N. J. , a stronghold of the New Jersey tories, 
who treated him respectfully, to Easton, Pa.; thence 
through Eastern Pennsylvania to Baltimore. The weath- 




Congress House, Baltimore. 
(From an old Print.) Congress met here Dec. 12, 1776. 

er was sometimes bitterly cold, sometimes warm, rainy 
or snowy; "roads abominably hard and rough." 

Nov. nth, 1777, Mr. Adams left the Congress per- 
manently, returned home and resumed the practice of 
his profession. 

The United States had three "commissioners" or 
agents in France, Franklin, Arthur Lee and Silas Deane. 
Deane had mismanaged his share of the business so much 
that on motion of Gerry, John Adams was appointed to 
supersede him, about Dec. ist, 1777. The position was 



JOHN ADAMS. 7^ 

undesirable. Lovell, R. H. Lee (brother of Arthur,) 
Roberdeau, Gerry, and Laurens, then president of Con- 
gress, wrote letters urging him to accept the appoint- 
ment, evidently fearing he might refuse. He accepted 
it promptly. There was danger of capture on the way, 
a stay in the Tower of London, and the fate of a con- 
demned rebel. 

Congress sent one of its best vessels to carry him. 
Feb. 13th, 1778, he left his native town with his son, 
John Quincy Adams, not yet eleven years old, on the 
frigate Boston. On the 20th a British ship of war chased 
them; but the Yankee ship was the better sailer. A 
storm of three days with a stroke of lightning that shat- 
tered the mainmast was the next distress. A British 
privateer was captured, with a valuable cargo. Two 
vessels, apparently British war vessels, passed near them 
without recognition. March 29th a pilot boat brought 
news of hostilities between England and France: untrue, 
since no act of war took place until June; and the two 
nations went to war without any declaration. On the 
forty-eighth day of his voyage, April ist, 1778, he went 
on shore at Bordeaux, whence he soon went to Paris, 
where he found Franklin, Deane, Arthur Lee, Ralph 
Izard and Dr. Edward Bancroft, all in some way agents 
of the United States. 

Mr. Adams found all the Americans at Paris full of 
animosity and jealousy toward each other, and toward 
William Lee, who was appointed to Vienna and the Aus- 
trian court, but was staying in Germany. Izard should 
have been in Italy at the court of the Grand Duke of 



7^ JOHN ADAMS. 

Tuscany. Adams determined to have no share in their 
quarrels, and succeeding in avoiding them, attending 
strictly to business. 

He found the embassy or agency had no records, no 
letter book, no accounts. He set himself to introduce 
business methods; to filing and copying letters; to recti- 
fying accounts and introducing bookrkeeping. The 
American agents had obtained loans, made purchases, 
and distributed funds in this lax, slipshod way, for which 
a Yankee has his most contemptuous word, "shiftless!" 

Mr. Adams wrote home to the Commercial Committee 
of the Congress. ' 'Agents of various sorts are drawing 
bills upon us, and the commanders of vessels of war are 
drawing on us for expenses, and [for] supplies which we 

never ordered We find it so difficult to obtain 

accounts from agents of the expenditures of moneys and 
of the goods and merchandise shipped by them, that 
we can never know the true state of our finances." 

Some of the agents must have been surprised after the 
easy-going ways of the commissioners to find their bills 
and drafts refused, because they had failed to render 
proper statements. His colleagues left it to Adams to 
write the letters, being indifferent or reluctant to adopt 
business methods. He was polite, but firm; and the 
men with whom he dealt knew that he asked no more 
than was proper, and came into the new ways which he 
succeeded in establishing. In fact, financial affairs were 
not much better managed on this side of the Atlantic. 

Mr. Adams was obliged also to make the official visits 
required by his position, to make and receive calls of cere- 



JOHN ADAMS. ']^ 

mony and courtesy, and in so doing to struggle with the 
difficulty of his ignorance of French. He was so busy at 
first that he would not take time for lessons from a tutor, 
but tried to learn from grammars and text-books. He 
admitted that in this he made a mistake; but he was wise 
enough to attend the theaters frequently, having copies 
of the plays with him, so that he could join the printed 
form of words to the spoken language, and have the best 
models of pronunciation for imitation. He found that 
Franklin fluently talked a Franklinian French, with lit- 
tle regard to the grammar. 

The worst thing he found was that the Count de Ver- 
gennes liked Franklin and snubbed the I/ces and Izard; 
and that the friends of Deane and the adventurers who 
could take advantage of him and of the favor of Ver- 
gennes and of Franklin's easy-going ways, were making 
money out of contracts. It was necessary to strike at 
the root of the mischief, and secure a re-organization of 
foreign affairs. He could not write an official letter to 
the Congress without bringing his colleagues to agree to 
his views: he therefore wrote a personal letter to Sam- 
uel Adams, who would be free to talk of the subject; 
the result was that all parties joined in amending the 
lack of system. 

Mr. Adams advised (i) that there should be but one 
commissioner, ambassador or envoy at any court. Each 
of them was obliged to keep up a respectable establish- 
ment, give formal dinners, etc., at an expense of not less 
than three thousand pounds sterling: those then at Paris 
had expended from four to six thousand. 



78 JOHN ADAMS. 

(2) That a definite and sufficient salary should be as- 
signed to each minister. The custom was for each to 
live as he thought proper, and to draw for the amount. 

(3) That the business of commercial agent should be 
separated from that of ambassador. The functions of 
the two should be made distinct and kept so. 

(4) That all the ministers at Paris, except one, should 
be recalled or sent to other places. 

Forthwith. Mr. Franklin was made sole representative 
to France, Mr. Arthur Lee was sent to Madrid, and Mr. 
Adams was left without assigned position, and not or- 
dered home. Col. Palfrey was made consular agent with 
large financial powers. Mr. Adams could not bear this 
inaction: he wrote to his wife, "I cannot eat pensions 
and sinecures: they would stick in my throat." He got 
passage after some delay on the French frigate "Z(? 6"<?«.y2- 
(^'Z^," June 17, 1778, and reached home Aug. 2d. 

Mr. Adams's first mission amounted to nothing in that 
way of diplomacy: it might seem that it had put him at 
risk and the country to expense, all for nothing. But 
the reforms he had wrought in the modes of doing the 
public business were worth all the cost; and he had 
shown his ability, his honorable unselfishness, and his 
fitness for public service, now the greater by his partial 
acquisition of the French language. 

He had furthermore learned enough of France and the 
schemes and spirit of the French government to be afraid 
of too close a connection with that power. He said, "It 

is a delicate and dangerous connection There 

is danger that the people and their representatives may 



JOHN ADAMS. 79 

have too much timidity in their conduct towards this 
power, and that your ministers here [in France] may 
have too much diffidence of themselves and too much 
complaisance for the court. There is danger that French 
councils and emissaries and correspondents may have too 
much influence in our deliberations. I hope this court 
may not interfere by attaching themselves to persons, 
parties or measures in America." 

Mr. Adams expressed similar opinions to M. Marbois 
on the voyage home. He was destined to see all these 
anticipations of evil fullfilled before the end of the cen- 
tury. 

Just one week after Mr. Adams reached his home, the 
town of Braintree elected him its representative in a con- 
vention to form a constitution for the state, as the ar- 
rangements made in 1774 had been considered provis- 
ional only. The practical character of his thinking 
made him a middle man between extremes. There was 
already developed in the state an ultra democracy, jealous 
of any executive, judiciary or legislature that it might 
itself create, desirous of retaining as much power as 
possible to the town-meeting, and of giving as little as 
possible to the state government. Samuel Adams was 
of this party, but with good sense enough to compromise 
and avoid extremes. Another party wanted the new 
constitution to represent strongly, "The rights of prop- 
erty." With neither of these could John Adams agree, 
while his plans might be a medium that both could ac- 
cept. Though he soon left the convention, his speech- 
es and his work on committees largely shaped the result. 



8o JOHN ADAMS. 

The reader will find in C. F. Adams's life of his grand- 
father, an interesting analysis of the complicated relations 
of parties in the Continental Congress which had fallen 
into dispute over their foreign affairs, into which dispute 
the French minister put his influence. Negotiation with 
Great Britain was expected before long; New England 
wanted John Adams to have that task, because the free 
enjoyment of the fishing on the Newfoundland banks 
was important to her; and she could rely upon him to 
look after that interest. She distrusted Mr. Jay, who 
was made his rival. 

In result Jay was made minister to Spain, whence Ar- 
thur Lee was withdrawn, while Adams was assigned to 
the expected negotiation with Great Britain, and sent to 
France to await the opportunity. Surely the two great- 
est assignments of responsibility to a single man during 
the Revolution were the appointment of Washington to 
command the armies, and the appointment of John Ad- 
ams to match his patriotism, judgment and skill against 
the diplomatic strength and experience of our great ad- 
versary, and her wounded pride. 

Mr. Adams left Boston for Europe on the French frig- 
ate '''•Le Sensible^'''' the one on which he had returned 
home three and a half months before. He took with 
him his sons, John Quincy and Charles, Francis Dana as 
secretary of the mission, and John Thaxter as private 
secretary. The vessel was unseaworthy: the season was 
unfavorable: in danger of foundering, the ship put into 
the nearest port it could reach, Ferrol, at the northwest 
corner of Spain, Dec. 8th. The passengers had to make 




POPTION OF 

NORTH AMERICA 



PERMAMEMT IMDIAN LAHDS TO 
BE UMDER THE PROTECTION 
OF THE UNITED STATES. 



PERMANENT INDIAN LANDS 
.TO BE UNDER THE PPOTECT- 

lON OF SPAIN. „<,<y«.,^ 
SPAIM CLAIMED WISCONSIN, — 
ILLINOIS HALF OFIMOIANA 
AND THE ■&• DISTRICT. 



82 JOHN ADAMS. 

a long and discomfortable journey overland, taking two 
months to reach Paris. While delayed in Spain, Mr, 
Adams began to learn Spanish, which language he much 
admired ; but he found nothing else to admire in that 
backward land. 

The motive of France in her interference in the war 
of the American Revolution was not any desire to favor 
liberty or republicanism, or to do any real kindness to 
the Americans. Individuals of the French nation had 
such motives. The French government wished to take 
vengeance upon her great adversary who had taken from 
her Canada and her vast American possessions, and had 
destroyed her power in India. Spain wanted to regain 
Gibraltar, taken from her in 1704, and Minorca. 

These two powers were therefore ready to help the re- 
volting colonies as soon as they saw that the rebels made 
a good fight, and were not likely to become reconciled 
with England. They were pleased to see both powers 
exhausted in the struggle. France had a slight hope of 
regaining Canada; and she wanted Spain to regain the 
Floridas, and to extend her power over all the land west 
of the Alleghenies. When she began to fear that the 
United Colonies might become too strong to remain un- 
der her thumb, she wanted Canada extended to the Ohio 
river, as an English possession. (See map, page 81.) 

It should be constantly remembered that in all respects 
France was a false friend; her pretexts and promises 
were deceitful; and her motives were merely vengeance 
and aggrandizement. American youth think of I^afay- 
ette and Rochambeau, and of King George, Lord North, 



JOHN ADAMS. 83 

Gage, Howe and Cornwallis, and thus think of France 
as our friend, and England as our enemy; yet, in fact, 
the English ministers secured to us the land of Missis- 
sippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, while France was 
scheming to take them from us. No nation has ever 
treated us so meanly as France has treated us, as a king- 
dom, a republic, and an empire; and yet from none have 
we had greater benefits, given from entirely selfish mo- 
tives. 

The Count De Vergennes, French minister of foreign 
affairs, was not sixty years old when our Revolution 
broke out. He had been trained from his youth in the 
diplomatic wiles, falsehoods, dishonesties and selfish 
wrongs which made the very substance of diplomacy in 
those days. Franklin records an instance of audacious 
lying, which involved Franklin himself. In 1776, in 
May, Vergennes arranged with King Louis XVI a grant 
to the colonists of a million livres, about $200,000, to en- 
courage their rebellion to the point of independence. 
This was so given as to make it appear to be the private 
gift of Beaumarchais. In 1782 Vergennes told an Eng- 
lish envoy, Thomas Grenville, in the most solemn man- 
ner, that France had never rendered any help to the col- 
onists until they had broken away from Great Britain, 
and had declared independence. Turning toward Frank- 
lin, he added, "There sits Mr. Franklin, who knows the 
fact, and can contradict me if I do not speak the truth." 

The influence of this perfidious schemer affected Amer- 
ican diplomacy from its beginfling. France was the first 



84 



JOHN ADAMS. 



power that sent a representative to the United States. 
Grateful for this act and for the assistance given, (though 
Vergennes meant the help should be only enough to 
keep them from failing,and falling under England again), 
Congress allowed itself to be much influenced by the 

French agent, Gerard, and tried 
to please him. Later, they 
gave even greater regard to the 
next French representative, Lu- 
zerne. 

When Congress was making 
up instructions for Adams, they 
first said that in treating with 
England he must insist upon 
certain boundaries, fishing 
rights, navigation of the Missis- 
sippi, etc. This did not suitVer- 
gennes: he might want peace made without such insis- 
tence; Gerard therefore advised that independence only 
should be insisted upon, these other points being strong- 
ly urged. Hence, two distinct commissions were given 
to Adams, for a treaty of independence, and for a treaty 
of commerce; and Mr. Adams was always to consult with 
Vergennes, and to be guided by his advice. 

Mr. Morse, in his "Life of John Adams," keeps a pile of 
brickbats ready to throw at him, being apparently much 
more aware of the defects of the man, than of his good 
qualities. This pile consists of thirty or more injurious 
epithets and allegations. But at times, looking at the 
work he did, he falls to praising him vigorously. So 




M. Gerard. 



JOHN ADAMS. 85 

at this stage of the biography his admiration of results 
makes him say good things so heartily that we copy his 
estimate in part: 

■ "Mr. Adams was a singular man to be selected for a 
difficult errand in diplomacy He seemed to pos- 
sess nearly every quality which a diplomatist ought not 
to have, and almost no quality which a diplomatist need- 
ed He was of a restless, eager temperament, hot 

to urge forward whatever business he had in hand, chaf- 
ing under any necessity for patience, disliking to bide 
his time, frank and outspoken in spite of his best efforts 
at self-control, and hopelessly incapable of prolonged 
concealment of his opinions, motives and purposes in ac- 
tion, his likings and dislikings towards persons 

"Yet he was precisely the man for the place and the 
duty. With the shrewdness of his race, he had consid- 
erable insight into character: a strong element of suspic- 
ion led him not quite to assume, as he might have done, 
that all diplomatists were dishonest, but induced him to 
watch them with a wise doubt and keenness; he had de- 
voted all the powers of a strong mind to the study of the 
situation, so that he was thoroughly master of all the 
various interests and probabilities which it was necessa- 
ry for him to take into account. 

"He was a patriot, so fearless and stubborn that 

he both made and persisted in the boldest demands on 
behalf of his country; he was high-spirited, too, and pre- 
sented such a front that he seemed to represent one of 

the greatest powers in the civilized world in spite 

of the well-known fact that he had only some revolted 



86 JOHN ADAMS. 

and more than half exhausted colonies at his back 

If it was true that quick-sighted statesmen easily saw what 
he wanted, it was also true that he impressed them with 
a sense that he would make a hard fight to get it; they 
could never expect to bully him, and not easily to cir- 
cumvent him He was eloquent and forcible in 

discussion, making a deep impression by an air of earnest 
straightforwardness. All these proved valuable qualifi- 
cations upon the peculiar mission on which he was now 
dispatched, 

' 'Adams strode along stoutly in broad daylight, break- 
ing the snares which were set for his feet, shouldering 
aside those who sought to crowd him from his path: un- 
ceremonious, making direct for his goal, with his eyes 
wide open, and his tongue not silent to speak the plain 
truth This trans-Atlantic negotiator excited sur- 
prise among the ministers of the Europe- 
an cabinets; but in the end he proved too much for them 
all : their peculiar skill was of no avail against his novel 

and original tactics So he carried his points with 

brilliant success." 

Mr. Morse thinks, however, that if Adams had been 
employed in a career of diplomacy, he would have been 
far from successful. Bismarck has in our own genera- 
tion carried on negotiations after the fashion of Adams; 
but he was backed by the Prussian and imperial power, 
and used indirect methods also. He often deceived by 
telling truth, because others did not think he would ex- 
pose his real purposes. 

Mr. Adams was commissioned to make treaties with 



JOHN ADAMS. ^7 

England, but could approach that power only through 
some other. His instructions were, of course, private. 
He was to take the advice of Vergennes, which he at 
once asked, whether to make known his errand to the 
public or to the English court. Vergennes said he could 
not advise until he should hear from Gerard, who "will 
certainly be able to make me better acquainted with the 
nature and extent of your commission." 

The fact was that Vergennes wanted to use secret influ- 
ences to induce Congress to cancel the commission to 
make a commercial treaty. Adams felt that he had too 
little to do: and observing that little was really known 
in France of America and its people, he wrote articles 
for a newspaper, and sent notes of information to Ver- 
gennes, who was pleased to receive them. He also wrote 
often to Congress. 

At the close of July, 1780, Mr. Adams went to Am- 
sterdam, mainly to try to get a loan there. He found 
that the Hollanders knew little of his country, nothing 
of its resources and prospects. He immediately made 
use of a few friends to the American cause who gained 
for him access to the press. He published translations 
of the reports and narratives of Howe and Burgoyne, as 
the best evidences of the strength of the colonies, and 
extracts from writings of the royalist Governor Pownal. 
He procured through a friend in Brussels, the publica- 
tion in London of articles written by himself, which were 
translated into the ""Ley den Gazetted Of course he wrote 
articles for the Dutch papers himself. 

Mr. Adams could get no loan. Just then Henry Eaur- 



88 JOHN ADAMS. 

ens was captured by a British vessel; and among his pa- 
pers was found correspondence with a leading Holland- 
er which excited the wrathful suspicion of England. 
For a while, no further move could be made; but Mr. 
Adams's expected stay of a few weeks was lengthened 
nearly to a year. 

Receiving additional authority, Mr. Adams addressed 
a memorial to the States General of Holland in February 
or March of 1781, stating that he was authorized to sign 
on behalf of the United States the treaty of the Armed 
Neutrality, which was negotiated by Russia to curb the 
insolence of Great Britain toward neutrals. He sent 
similar notice to the Ministers of France, Russia, Swe- 
den and Denmark who were at the Hague. 

Just a year from his first application, April 19th, 1782, 
the States General officially recognized him as envoy of 
the United States: and as such he was formally present- 
ed to that body four days later. England had unwisely 
added Holland to the number of her enemies in arms by 
a declaration of war, Nov. 20, 17S0. She had now not 
an active friend in Europe. Russia, Sweden and Den- 
mark were against her in the Armed Neutrality; Holland, 
France and Spain at war with her; Prussia was unfriend- 
ly; and the Bourbon court of Naples and the Italian 
states under Spanish influence would do her no kind- 
ness. Portugal, Austria, German principalities and Tur- 
key remain: they did nothing for her. But George HI 
doggedly held on. 

After Adams left the offended Vergennes and began 
his notable and successful diplomacy in Holland, Ver- 



JOHN ADAMS. 8g 

gennes did not relax his efforts to influence the Congress 
to recall the man he disliked. To the shame of the 
American Congress it must be recorded that while it re- 
fused to recall Adams, it did, under the influence of Ver- 
gennes through Luzerne, revoke the powers given him 
to make a commercial treaty with England as well as a 
treaty of peace. At the same time, July, 1781, Congress 




Tower of London, where Laurens was confined. 

created a commission of five to treat for a recognition of 
independence and for peace; and Adams was retained as 
one, joined with Franklin, Jefferson, (who did not go to 
Europe on this business at all)", John Jay, then minister 
at Madrid, and Henry Laurens, then prisoner in the 
Tower of London. The five were from Massachusetts, 
New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina. 
But this act of wisdom on the part of Congress was 
more than balanced by a piece of supreme folly. Once 
certain ultimata had been set for Adams to insist upon: 



go JOHN ADAMS. 

first, boundaries on the north, about what they are now: 
on the south, the line of Florida extended to the Missis- 
sippi: on the west, the Mississippi: and on the northeast, 
the boundary of Maine as it had been drawn long ago by 
Great Britain. Next, tlie envoy should insist on free 
navigation of the Mississippi; next, the right of fishing 
on the banks as allowed to the colonists; and last, of 
course, independence. 

Now, at the bidding of Vergennes, all these were 
abandoned except the last. He was willing that Ameri- 
ca should ask for the other things; but he regarded them 
as points to be abandoned in the negotiations if France 
and Spain could gain thereby. 

Still worse, the commissioners were instructed "to 
make the most candid and confidential communications 
upon all subjects to the ministers of our generous ally, 
the King of France; to undertake nothing in the nego- 
tiations for peace or truce without their knowledge or 
concurrence; and ultimately to govern themselves by 
their advice and opinion." 

Adams and Jay both felt hurt when they received this 
humiliating instruction: Franklin gave no sign of dis- 
satisfaction. 

Jay felt equally hurt, being treated with indignity. At 
Madrid he had discovered that France was more an ally of 
Spain than of the United States, and that the interests 
of his own country in the West and on the Mississippi 
were to be sacrificed. He did not resign, but wrote 
home asking that some other should be sent to take his 
place. Till his successor should arrive, he remained as 



JOHN ADAMS. q! 

one of the commission. If Jay and Adams could agree, 
they two must play the game, I^aurens and Jefferson re- 
maining absent. 

Those engaged in the negotiations which ensued, be- 
side the three Americans were, on the part of France, 
Vergennes, minister of foreign affairs; Luzerne and Mar- 
bois, minister and charge in the United States; the Count 
de Montmorin, minister to Spain; Marquis d'Ossun, 
agent sent to Spain; and Reyneval, the confidential sec- 
retary of Vergennes, sent thrice as secret agent to Eng- 
land. On the part of Spain, Florida Blanca, prime min- 
ister, and Count d'Aranda, Spanish minister at Paris. 
On the part of England, Oswald, the .chief agent; Fitz- 
herbert and Strachey joined with Oswald; Hartley, plen- 
ipotentiary to finish and sign the treaty; Vaughan, an 
Englishman very friendly to America, used by both par- 
ties: Thomas Grenville, sent by Fox; and inferior agents, 
Forth, Digges, Robert and Whitehead. English cabi- 
net officers in the same negotiation were the Ma.quis of 
Rockingham, Earl Shelburne, the Duke of Portland, 
and Charles James Fox, The treaties were mainly 
shaped under Shelburne. 

The capture of Earl Cornwallis and his army, Oct. 19, 
1781, convinced Lord North that he could not conquer 
the colonies, and he must resign; but King George begged 
him to hold on and keep up the war. Parliament turned 
against the minister, and he resigned March 20, 1782. 
He had previously sent Digges, unofficially, to sound 
Adams at Amsterdam, and had sent Mr. Forth to Ver- 
gennes to see whether the restoration of Canada would 



92 JOHN ADAMS. 

tempt France to a separate peace. Other agents than 
those named above were used: men who could make a 
suggestion which was not a real offer, and which could 
be disavowed. Adams was wary, and would not talk 
with Digges except in the presence of a witness and with 
leave to report to Vergennes. King George was tricky, 
and would talk with Shelburne secretly, not permitting 
him to tell the other ministers; and probably he deceived 
Shelburne in the same way. 

Shelburne and Fox, fellow ministers, quarreled as to 
which should conduct the negotiation. If they were 
treated as colonies, they belonged to Shelburne: if as a 
nation, they came into Fox's department of foreign af- 
fairs. Shelbufne had the bad reputation of being unre- 
liable, deceptive. Dr. Franklin wrote Shelburne a let- 
ter as a private person: thereupon, Shelburne sent Os- 
wald without the knowledge of the English cabinet to 
inquire informally upon what terms America would 
make peace. Franklin told him he must consult Ver- 
gennes. Oswald expected America to make peace sep- 
arately. Just so Fox sent Grenville to treat with France 
separately. This division of counsels broke up the Eng- 
lish cabinet, after it had led Vergennes and Franklin to 
suspect double-dealing and deception. Fox went out. 

Jay had been summoned by Franklin from Madrid, 
where he was gaining nothing, to join in the negotiation 
at Paris. He was an acute lawyer. He was not a rep- 
resentative of "Thirteen colonies or plantations in North 
America," but of a sovereign power that had asserted its 
independence and proved it by war. He was told that 



JOHN ADAMS. 93 

the treaty would recognize the fact. That would not 
suit him: he must be addressed as a commissioner from 
the United States, an existing power, not a state to be 
created by a concession in a treaty. 

Franklin cared not for the point: he was satisfied if 
the main point should be gained, no matter how. Ver- 
gennes sided with Shelburne, and let him know it. Jay 
wrote to Adams in Holland, who sustained his point. 
The two lawyers knew the importance of terms. Adams 
suggested that the recognition might be merely inciden- 
tal and not formally direct: if Oswald were directed to 
treat with the commissioners from the United States of 
America, it would be satisfactory to him. Shelburne 
took advantage of the simple suggestion; the parties 
were then ready to treat. 

Jay and Franklin stated their case: they asked the 
things which have been named on a preceding page as 
the original ultimata of the Congress: England refused, 
objected, haggled, so as to give as little as she could, and 
put forward her claims. 

The Americans demanded that the Mississippi should 
be their western boundary, as it had been England's 
boundary by the peace of 1763. The northwestern re- 
gion was claimed in virtue of the conquest made by Gen. 
George Rogers Clarke, when Vincennes and Kaskaskia 
were taken, and the English possession ousted. Eng- 
land had no posts south of Detroit and Mackinac. Flor- 
ida was then English, by possession, but with no Eng- 
lish settlements to speak of; and it might be ceded to 
Spain in this negotiation. But the United States claimed 



94 JOHN ADAMS. 

as belonging to Georgia the shore of the great river as 
far south as what is now the southern line of the state of 
Mississippi. 

Spain set up a counter-claim of nearly all west of the 
Alleghenies, and during this negotiation sent a military 
expedition from St. Louis across Illinois, and built a 
small fort at Niles, Mich., so as to claim actual occupa- 
tion. Vergennes supported Spain, and said the Ameri- 
can claims were too extensive and unjust. Jay had been 
growing more and more suspicious of the ally under 
whose thumb the commission was placed; and although 
as a New Yorker he had no appreciation of the value of 
the West and of the navigation of the river, the value 
evidently put upon these by the other party changed his 
views. 

The eastern edge of Maine was in question, but was 
more easily proved: so England gave up the boundary 
by the Kennebec or the Penobscot, and accepted the St. 
Croix. Franklin had met the English claims by a sug- 
gestion that England ought to give us Canada and Nova 
Scotia. 

The right to the fisheries was especially .valuable to 
New England, whose citizens wanted the same enjoy- 
ment of them that they had had as colonists. The Eng- 
lish wished to curtail or deny this claim. Again Ver- 
gennes took sides against the Americans, and pronounced 
their claim unjust. 

Another point upon which the English were very 
strenuous was compensation for the loyalists or tories 
who had been expelled, or for fear of ill-treatment, had 



JOHN ADAMS. 95 

thought it best to emigrate. There were thousands of 
these in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Canada. The 
property of many of them had been confiscated by action 
of the states because of their loyalty to the King. They 
certainly had claims upon Great Britain; and that pow- 
er very naturally undertook to make reclamation upon 
the United States. Debts due to British merchants 
might be refused; and their claims were joined by Eng- 
land with those of the loyalists. Vergennes, in these 
matters took the English side. 

Franklin and Jay were having their hands full with 
all this business, and were glad when Adams was ready 
to join tliem. On the seventh of October, 1782, he had 
signed a treaty of amity and commerce with the United 
Provinces, generally called Holland, and addressed as 
their High Mightinesses. 

On the 26th of October, Adams arrived from Holland 
at Paris. Both the English agents and the French ne- 
gotiators were afraid of him. His sharply incisive and 
decisive character was well known to Vergennes, and 
had been reported to the English. Oswald had been do- 
ing business with Jay and Franklin. When sending 
him with a letter of introduction to Dr. Franklin, Shel- 
burne had spoken of him as "A pacifical man:" he had 
lately concluded that he was too pacifical, too easily 
yielding to the Americans. He therefore joined with 
Oswald about this time Mr. Henry Strachey, as a better 
exponent of English pertinacity. His function was to 
stiffen Oswald, and fight stoutly the American claims. 

Adams and Jay both felt the meanness of the po- 



96 ■ JOHN ADAMS. 

ition assigned them by the orders of Congress. While 
they must reveal everything to Vergennes, they found 
that that minister was sending secret agents to Eng- 
land and concealing from them his action affecting 
their interests. He had assigned to them the hard task 
of settling the Mississippi question with the Spaniard, 
D'Aranda, evidently intending that they should yield to 
him. 

Should they continue to obey instructions so detri- 
mental? Should they dare disobey? To this Franklin 
said, "No." Yet Franklin had twice made secret over- 
tures to Shelburne. In a meeting of the three, Adams 
and Jay told Franklin their determination to proceed 
without informing Vergennes. Franklin's reasons were 
personal rather than political, because of his long inti- 
macy with the French court; and he soon agreed with 
his colleagues. 

The treaty-making now went on rapidly with Oswald, 
Vaughan and Strachey, the last-named, furnishing acidi- 
ty and bitterness enough for the whole British Embassy. 
The boundary questions were easily arranged. Massa- 
chusetts had furnished proof of the eastern boundary of 
her district of Maine. The British accepted the line of 
the middle of the great lakes and the Mississippi, with a 
secret article about the southern boundary, dependent 
upon the final disposition of Florida. For debts it was 
provided on suggestion of Adams that the American 
courts should be open for their recovery, none being cut 
off by the war. 

The fisheries were a subject of a long contention, made 



JOHN ADAMS. 97 

more difficult by the fact that France was negotiating on 
the same subject. 

Really the hardest subject was indemnity to the refu- 
gees. When all seemed to have reached agreement, 
Mr. Strachey left for London with a copy of the articles, 
but left a note saying that unless indemnity were pro- 
vided, no treaty would be had. Vaughan kindly fol- 
lowed to counteract the influence of Strachey. He pre- 
sented the reasons of the American envoys: that they 
had no power to bind the individual states to any line of 
action; that the refugees could be shown to have pro- 
longed the war and to have done much damage; that pro- 
longing the war on their account would cost England 
more than to indemnify them herself, and would be a 
hopeless effort. The commissioners could promise that 
Congress should recommend to the States a liberal treat- 
ment of the loyalists. 

Earl Shelburne saw that it was vain to continu'e the 
war; that Ireland was a source of danger; that the mood 
of the king was very uncertain; that his tenure of office 
was precarious. He must have the peace; policy and 
judgment both demanding it. He sent back Strachey, 
and Fitzherbert with him, to make peace. Mr. Laurens, 
freed from the Tower on parole, had joined the commis- 
sion. Strachey returned Nov. 25th, in ill humor: but 
the four days' discussion on the fisheries ended in the 
adoption of Mr. Adams's article with slight changes; and 
on Saturday, Nov. 30th, 1782, exactly five weeks from 
the day when Adams returned to Paris, the preliminary 
treaty was signed, and peace w^as assured. 



98 JOHN ADAMS. 

Doubtless Vergennes was observant and shrewd enougb 
to know that the Americans were pushing their own 
treaty; nor did he object when they told him what was 
done. But some fifteen days later, when he met with 
some difficulty in his own negotiations, he suddenly sus- 
pected that the United States would join England against 
France. He accused the envoys of bad faith; they were 
bound to make no treaty except in union with France. 
They easily defended themselves, since they had stipu- 
lated that their treaty should not become valid until 
France and England had agreed: they merely had their 
part ready. He also complained to Congress about their 
secrecy, and failure to consult him. The commissioners 
were justly incensed when they received a rebuke from 
Robert R. Livingston, who was in charge of foreign af- 
fairs, who, instead of praising them for their skill and 
perseverance and good achievements, found fault with 
them for doing well, without French supervision. Liv- 
ingston apologized to Vergennes, and told him of the se- 
cret article, which did not relate to France at all. 

The commissioners were rightly angry, and prepared 
a sharp and long reply by Mr. Jay; but it was not sent. 
Adams wrote that the conduct of Congress was infamous. 
But he suppressed his wrath, and remained at his post, 
though very homesick. As soon as the definitive treaty 
was assured, he sent his resignation Dec. 4th, 1782, and 
joyfully wrote to his wife that he should soon be at home, 
in spring or early summer: he would come home even if 
his resignation were not accepted. But he found he must 
wait; and in September, 1783, the same three were ap- 



JOHN ADAMS. 



99 



pointed to make a commercial treaty with England. 
But he was worn out, and broke down with a fever. 
Sir James Jay, physician and friend, cared for him, and 
sent him to 
England Oct. 
24th. He had 
had the hon- 
or and pleas- 
ure of sign- 
ing the final 
treaty of 
peace, Sept. 
3d, and hoped 
to rest i n 
England. He 
was in the 
Parliament 
when George 
in publicly 
confessed his 
defeat and 
the indepen- 
dence of the 
revolted col 
onies 
necessities of 

the public credit obliged him to make a voyage to 
Holland in the winter through hardships severe for a 
well man. He now sent for his wife and daughter, who 
came in the summer of 1784. 







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100 JOHN ADAMS. 

Congress next made Adams, Franklin and Jefferson a 
commission to make commercial treaties with any or all 
powers. Prussia was the first to accept the offer. Mr. 
Adams had taken a house near Paris. But Feb. 24, 
1785, Congress appointed him the first minister of the 
United States to Great Britain. Vergennes congratulated 
him saying, "It is a mark." But it was also a great 
task. The Duke of Dorset, minister to France, said to 
him, "You will be stared at a great deal." "I fear they 
will gaze with evil eyes," replied Mr. Adams. The duke, 
with more courtesy than truthfulness, said they would 
not. 

Mr. Adams was presented to the king in a private au- 
dience, June ist, 1785, by the Marquis of Carmarthen. 
Naturally he felt some nervousness and embarrassment. 
The king had heard that Adams had lost confidence in 
the French court, and alluded to this slightly, but spoke 
of the common blood and the common language, Ad- 
ams assented to the drift of the king's language, but 
ended his. reply with the sentence, "I avow to your maj- 
esty that I have no attachment but to my own country." 
The king seemed pleased with this sturdy patriotism. 

When Adams demanded the fulfillment of the treaty 
of 1783, and the evacuation of Mackinac, Detroit, and 
other posts, he was reminded that the states had not re- 
garded the treaty, had hindered the collection of debts; 
and when he proposed a commercial treaty, he was told 
that the states made their own tariffs. A policy of re- 
pression of American trade was adopted. 

Mr. Adams saw that he was doing no good, and sent 



JOHN ADAMS. idt 

in his resignation, which was accepted Oct. 5th, 1787, 
and he left England April 20, 1788, thoroughly disgust- 
ed with England, France and diplomatic service. 

Up to this time no man save Washington had rendered 
as much sersace to his country as Adams had given; no 
other had gained equal results; no one had excelled him 
in political knowledge and ability, foresight, patience, 
perseverance, endurance and daring in times of crisis. In 
recognition of such qualities and services, his country- 
men in organizing under the new constitution placed 
him as alternate to Washington, Vice President of the 
United States. 

The election to the Vice Presidency was not altogeth- 
er pleasant to Mr. Adams, not because of any aspiration 
for the highest place, but because, while Washington 
was elected unanimously, Adams did not have a majority 
of the votes cast. As the constitution then stood, elec- 
tors put two names on their ballots without specifying 
which person was meant for president: if two had the 
same number, the House of Representatives should 
choose between them. Seeing the possibility of such an 
ambiguous election, Hamilton suggested that some of the 
electors should throw their votes aside from Adams, 
whose election was expected. 

Unfortimately, no concert being possible, thirty-five 
electors threw their votes away as compliments to ten 
persons, leaving only thirty-four for Adams, who said, 
writing to a friend, "I have seen the utmost delicacy 
used towards others, but my feelings have never been re- 
garded. " 



102 JOHN ADAMS. 

It did seem hard, when he returned to his native 
country, for which he had done and suffered so much, to 
find that he was not appreciated as he thought he should 
be. From that time he and Hamilton were often in 
conflict. 

When the constitution was proposed, two parties arose 
at once, those who favored the adoption of it, called Fed- 
eralists, and those opposed to it, called Anti-Federalists, 
until they organized as Republicans or Democratic Re- 
publicans. Generally those who. had opposed the con- 
stitution feared that the central government would en- 
croach on the rights of the states or of the people; they 
took the name Republicans or Democratic Republicans, 
or were called Democrats. 

Ten days before the inauguration of Washington, Mr. 
Adams was installed as Vice President, April 20, 1789, 
and began to preside over the Senate, at New York. 
That body was almost equally divided between Federa- 
lists and Republicans, so that the first Vice President 
had to give the casting vote no less than twenty times 
during the sessions of the first Congress and nine times 
during the second. No other presiding officer of that 
body has had such experience. He did not decide as a 
Federalist partisan, but always on what he deemed the 
merits of the question. Some very important questions 
were thus decided by him. 

Mr. Adams rather despised an office which gave him 
so little to do, and in which he was obliged to listen to 
debates without sharing in them. He must often have 
seen that a little of his knowledge and of his logic would 



JOHN ADAMS. 103 

clear a befogged matter. He wrote to his wife Dec. 19th, 
1793, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me 
the most insignificant office that ever the invention of 
man contrived or his imagination conceived. And as I 
can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by 
others and meet the common fate. ' ' But he undervalued 
his place. He had a long rest from labor and responsi- 
bility; and Washington often consulted him on public 
affairs as if he had been a member of the cabinet. 

In 1792 Washington was again elected unanimously, 
and Adams had the full vote of the Federal party, sev- 
enty seven votes; George Clinton of New York had the 
votes of four states, and Jefferson of one; total, fifty-four. 

With the most of the important events of Washing- 
ton's administrations, Mr. Adams had no connection. 
Washington 'was of the Federalist policy, but took into 
his cabinet the two strongest available men, Alexander 
Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, who soon became the 
heads of the two opposing parties. He was not able to 
hold them both as his secretaries; in fact, both resigned. 

When it was settled that Washington would not ac- 
cept the presidency a third time, Hamilton began schem- 
ing to push Adams aside, 

Adams thoroughly disliked Hamilton, who returned 
the feeling as strongly. Adams's expressions in a letter to 
Knox were more extravagant than a cooler mood would 
have allowed. It is not fair to deduce "some of his 
traits" from such a passionate utterance, any more than 
it would be to judge Washington from what he said to 
Lee at Monmouth, or from his curses upon St. Clair. . 



104 JOHN ADAMS. 

Mr. Adams was elected by seventy-one electoral votes 
over Jefferson's sixty-eight. He had solitary votes from 
Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and even from Virginia, 
the rest of the votes of those states going to Jefferson. 
Had two of these been given to Jefferson, they would 
have elected him. The republicans sneered at Adams 
as the president of three votes. Jefferson became Vice 
President. When news of the election made it look 
as if the election might go into the House, he said he 
wished his old friend Adams to win. 

Washington was tired of the office, and longed to be 
free. He had been sorely abused, "in terms," says 
Schouler, ' 'scarcely applicable to a Nero, a defaulter, or 
a common pickpocket." An anti-Federal paper called 
him a fool. A paper in Philadelphia published by B. F. 
Bache, a grandson of Franklin, was very virulent in its 
attacks upon Washington both as President and as a 
man. He was charged with misusing the public funds 
for his own advantage. Forged letters got up by the tor- 
ies in 1776, in which he was said lo have expressed him- 
self against independence and Congress, were republished 
as genuine. It was said that ten thousand people were 
threatening to drag him out of his house and make him 
resign or favor France. 

Jefferson employed in his department a clerk, Freneau, 
who was editor of an abusive paper. '''•The Aurora)'' re- 
joiced that Washington's career was ended, saying that 
he had carried his designs against the public liberty so 
far as to have put in jeopardy its very existence." 

Washington at a cabinet meeting broke down in a 



JOHN ADAMS. lo^ 

transport of ' 'indignation and grief at the personal abuse 
heaped upon him." 

If the Republicans so abused Washington, whom we 
venerate, what would they not say against John Adams? 
Poor Adams, if not really more sensitive than Washing- 
ton, seemed to be so, and could not conceal his irritation 
and wrath. That delighted his tormentors the more. 
It was an age of coarse vituperation, as well as of bitter 
political hatreds and groundless suspicions. 

The folly of George III had made monarchy hateful. 
As the aristocracy of England had, with a few excep- 
tions, supported the usurpations of the king. Aristocracy 
was the second bugbear, hiding in every bush. Blank 
equality was the rage. A society like the Grand Army 
of the Republic would have been an evident threat of a 
standing army and of the downfall of liberty. Legisla- 
tion to prohibit it would have been enacted in every state. 

The officers of the army that had won independence 
formed a society, the Cincinnati, with the right of mem- 
bership hereditary. That was founding an order of no- 
bility. Public opinion frowned upon the innocent asso- 
ciation, and it almost withered away. 

Seeing the quarrel between Hamilton, the actual lead- 
er of the Federalists, and Adams, the executive chief 
whom they had elected, the Republicans seemed to have 
thought that he might be detached from the Federal 
party. 

The French Revolution exerted great influence upon 
American feeling and policy. At first, all parties were 
hopeful of a genuine reform in France, and a govern- 



io6 JOHN ADAMS. 

ment with at least a good measure of freedom. But 
when the rule of a mob replaced the autocracy of the 
king, and cold-blooded butcheries were perpetrated in 
the name of liberty, there was a great revulsion of feel- 
ing. France and England were soon at war. Washing- 
ton proclaimed neutrality; but the French ambassador, 
Genet, acted as if this country belonged to him, and un- 
dertook to fit out war vessels in our ports. He gave Wash- 
ington great trouble. 

The Republicans sympathized more with the French, 
and were against England, which continued its haughty 
abuse of our country till after the fall of Napoleon. 
They called the Federalists a British party. The retort 
upon them was that they favored anarchy and barbarity. 
France claimed the benefit of the treaty of alliance of 
1778; and when Washington proclaimed neutrality, she 
proclaimed blockades, and began to seize American ships. 
We really were for months at war with France. 

Fortunately for us. Ambassador Adams had freed him- 
self from all notion of obligation to that country that 
had helped the United Colonies only to gratify a grudge 
against an ancient enemy; and he had had such an un- 
pleasant experience in England that he had no prepos- 
session now for what had been "The mother-country." 
Hence, President Adams could keep the ship of state on 
the course of impartial neutrality. 

President Adams committed one great mistake in pol- 
icy. Washington had found difficulty in getting suita- 
ble persons to follow Jefferson, Hamilton and Knox, 
when they resigned from his cabinet. He had offered 



JOHN ADAMS. 107 

the Secretaryship of State to Wm. Patterson, Thomas 
Johnson, C. C. Pinckney and Patrick Henry, all of whom 
declined it: he had then put Timothy Pickering, former 
Postmaster-General and then secretary of war, into the 
place: Carrington and Howard of Maryland refusing the 
portfolio of the war department, he gave that to Mc Hen- 
ry, and advanced Oliver Wolcott to the Treasury. Pick- 
ering, Wolcott and Mc Henry were really only second or 
third rate men, worth little as advisers. Adams did not 
try to make a new cabinet, but continued these in office. 

The worst of the matter was that instead of looking to 
their chief for direction, they looked for orders to Ham- 
ilton as the head of the party, and tried to bend Adams 
to Hamilton's purposes. They wrote Hamiltonian pa- 
pers for him to sign, and proposed Hamiltonian nomina- 
tions. The consequence was that after enduring much 
discourtesy and even insolence from them, in an explo- 
sion of indignation he dismissed Mc Henry and Picker- 
ing, who became bitter and treacherous enemies. But 
he never knew how much all three had betrayed him. 

Seeing the probability of war, Adams did all he could 
to increase the army and especially the navy, but with 
only moderate success. It was one of the mistakes of 
the Republicans to scant these arms of defense. 

President Adams determined to make a treaty with 
fractious France, and consulted with Jefferson, whom he 
would have sent as minister, had they not both agreed 
that such function was unsuitable for a Vice President. 
Madison would not go with Hamilton as colleague. Adams 
was evidently no narrow partisan. In the face of warm 



lo8 JOHN ADAMS. 

Opposition of his secretaries, Pickering and Wolcott, lie 
sent Marshall and C. C. Pinckney, Federalists, and Ger- 
ry, Republican. 

They were received, but were soon informed that to 
get a treaty they must furnish certain sums of money 
as bribes and loans. Talleyrand was their foreign min- 
ister for the Directory. Pinckney answered quickly, 
"not a cent, not a cent;" and after his return, at a din- 
ner, gave the famous sentiment, "Millions for defense, 
not a cent for tribute." Gerry remained after the others 
left, because Talleyrand told him France would declare 
war if he left. Immediately, further wrongs were inflict- 
ed on our commerce. 

The President reported the failure to Congress, and 
advised that preparations for war be pushed. Jefferson 
hated war as if he had been trained as a Quaker. His 
party in Congress opposed the preparations for war. The 
correspondence of the envoys was called for. They had 
obtained memoranda of the requirement of bribes and 
tribute in writing. The president put the letters X, Y 
and Z in place of the names of the agents, Hottinguer, 
Bellamy and Hautval, and sent the whole disgraceful 
story to Congress. A tempest of anger arose in all the 
land. War was demanded. Support was promised on 
all sides. 

The president was overwhelmed with evidences of 
popularity. But he was as little shaken by this as by 
opposition. He was not ready for war, and would not 
recommend it. He recalled Gerry, and said he would 
not send another minister till he had assurance that he 



JOHN ADAMS. 109 

would be received with honor. Washington was named 
to command the army with the new rank of Lieutenant- 
General, and, at his request, Adams nominated for gen- 
erals next in rank, Hamilton, C. C. Pinckney and Knox, 
which led to a squabble for precedence. 

In the midst of this flurry were passed the famous Ali- 
en and Sedition laws. 




Home of John Adams Quincy Miss where he passed the last 
years of his life. 

If the Alien Act had been passed in Washington's time, 
he would have used it to get rid of Genet, no doubt. 
The worst of the act is that it gave the president an ir- 
responsible power to act as judge and jury and executive 
if any alien seemed to him obnoxious, and to send such 
person out of the country. The reader will be reminded 
of Lincoln's action in May, 1863, when he sent Vallan- 
digham, convicted of disloyal utterances, into the terri- 
tory held by the Confederate States. Adams never used 
the Alien Law. 

The Sedition law forbad the publication of any writ- 



no JOHN ADAMS. 

ing "false, scandalous and malicious," with intent to de- 
fame the government. Congress, or the president, or to 
bring them into contempt or disrepute. This was so 
worded that it might be used against reasonable political 
discussion. A few prosecutions occurred under it. Mr. 
Adams did not ask for or recommend these acts; but he 
is so far responsible for them as this; when they were 
enacted by his party, he did not veto them. 

When Talleyrand indicated to the American minister 
at the Hague through the French minister there, that an 
American envoy would be honorably received, Adams 
overruled the opposition of his Hamiltonian secretaries, 
and in defiance of the Federal majority of the Senate 
named a peace commission to go to France that they 
dared not reject; Ellsworth, Murray and Patrick Henry. 
War was averted and peace made; but work on the navy 
continued. 

The cabinet tried to delay the departure of the com- 
mission: his peremptory orders overruled them. This 
quarrel disrupted his party, and prevented a re-election 
for him: but he had acted nobly for his country. He 
very soon disposed of Pickering and McHenry, forcing 
them to resign. 

There had been seditious opposition to the laws in 
Eastern Pennsylvania; John Fries was twice tried for 
treason, found guilty, and sentenced to death: Picker- 
ing and other leaders in the party were anxious to have 
the exemplary penalty inflicted; but the president par- 
doned Fries and his associates, greatly to the disgust of 
the extremists. Fries has the distinction of being the 



JOHN ADAMS. in 

only man ever convicted of treason in the United States. 

Like most presidents, John Adams desired re-election. 
Jefferson was a very radical theorist; but with the errors 
and the successes of the twelve years before him, he was 
shrewd enough to drop his anarchic theories, his nullify- 
ing doctrines, his overstrained literal interpretations of 
the conconstitution and to make himself a practical ruler. 
But what he had said and done had made the conservative 
portion of the community afraid of him. Adams had a 
very respectable vote, sixty-five out of the 138 votes, Jef- 
ferson having seventy-three: a change of five votes would 
have elected Adams. But the Federal party was hope- 
lessly disorganized. 

On the twentieth of January, 1801, Ellsworth hav- 
ing resigned the position of Chief Justice, and Jay 
having declined the place, Adams had appointed his 
Secretary of State, John Marshall, to be Chief Jus- 
tice. Had Adams done nothing else for his coun- 
try, this selection of the greatest and most influen- 
tial jurist America has known should be gratefully re- 
membered. Federalist interpretations, giving strength 
and dignity to tlijs national government, flowed from 
Marshall's brain and pen, years after the bodies of Ad- 
ams and Jefferson were dust, and the old party contests 
had been merged in the "Era of Good Feeling." 

Federalist leaders in Congress lent themselves to the 
silly and wicked scheme of electing Burr instead of Jef- 
ferson, since the electoral vote was tied between them. 
As they had been friends during the canvass, Jefferson 
sought Adams to ask his favorable influence. Adams 



112 JOHN ADAMS. 

was feeling sore over his defeat, and instead of saying 
"yes," began to ask Jefferson to pledge himself to cer- 
tain measures. Of course he rightly and proudly re- 
fused, and the two parted in anger. Adams is censura- 
ble for his irritable conduct of the last weeks of his term. 

Early in the morning of the inauguration day, with 
heart saddened by the death of his son Charles, he w^as 
so discourteous as to leave the city of Washington 
and avoid the inauguration of his rival, long his 
friend. Not long before he had said to Jefferson in all 
good humor and sincerity, "If you beat me in the Presi- 
dency, I will be as faithful a subject as any you will 
have." 

At home in Quincy the tired and sad old man amused 
himself with reading and study, and correspondence. 
He began an autobiography, which he left incomplete. 
This and his letters often make severe j'udgments upon 
others. He could not observe the maxim which gives 
title to one of Reade's novels, "Put Yourself in his 
Place." The very intensity and earnestness that had 
made him so valuable in the earlier part of his career 
appear as stubborn impracticability in the later. He 
was gloomy, now that he could no longer enjoy the bat- 
tle of life. 

He saw with pleasure the advancement of his son, and 
his election to the Presidency. When he was eighty- 
five years old his townsmen elected him to a State con- 
vention for the revision of the constitution. The con- 
vention elected him its president; but the infirmities of 
age compelled him to decline the post. He was a presi- 



JOHN ADAMS. 



113 



dential elector in 1820, and voted for Monroe. His dear 
wife was taken from him by a fever, Oct. 28th, 181 8, 
when he was eighty- three years old; but he lived on un- 
til he was well 
along in his 
ninety first year. 
It is pleasant to 
record that his 
friendship with 
Jefferson was 
renewed. Jef- 
ferson made ad- 
vances through 
Mrs.Adams; but 
his proud spirit 
was not ap- 
peased. Dr. Rush 
became the me- 
dium of a rec- 
onciliation. 

They had 
come, indeed 
upon common 
ground. The ad- 
ministration of Jefferson had from the first deserted his 
ultraisms. He was glad to use the power Federalism had 
framed. Swearing to observe the constitution, he be- 
lieved that he had broken its plain sense by annexing 
the Louisiana Territory, a measure such as would have 
cost Adams no questioning. 




John Quincy Adams, 

Son of John Adams, and Sixth President of the 

United States. Born 1767. Died 1848. 



114 JOHN ADAMS. 

So the two old men, friends again, approached the 
fiftieth anniversary of the great act in which they had so 
grandly shared. It proved the last day for each of them. 
Adams's mind was clear to the end. He died at sunset, 
Tuesday, July 4th, 1826. It is said that his last words 
were, "Jefferson still survives." He was wrong: Jeffer- 
son had died in the morning of that day. 

John Adams's remains were buried in a tomb under 
the portico of the First Congregational (Unitarian) 
Church of Quincy. In the body of the church, by the 
side of the pulpit, at the preacher's right," is a marble 
tablet, seven feet by four, on which is chiseled a memor- 
ial of the statesman and of his wife. It is surmounted 
by Greenough's bust of the ex-president. Under that 
the first line is his favorite motto, '■'■ Liber tatem^ amicit- 
iam^Jidem^ retinebis^'' — Liberty, friendship, faith, thou 
wilt hold fast. Overlooking his personal defects, the 
judgment of the ages will pronounce him in service to 
his country second only to Washington. 



ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF JOHN ADAMS. 

ADAMS'S RUI.es. 

Here is the rule which, with Adams's natural abili- 
ties, made him a great lawyer and a great statesman: 

"Rise and mount your horse by the morning's dawn, 
and shake away, amidst the great and beautiful scenes 
of nature that appear at that time of day, all the crudi- 
ties that are left in your stomach, and all the obstruc- 
tions that are left in your brains. Then return to your 



JOHN ADAMS. 115 

studies, and bend your whole soul to the institutes of 
the law and the reports of cases that have been adjusted 
by the rules of the institutes. Let no trifling diversion 
or amusement or company decoy you from your books: 
i. (?., no girl, no gun, no cards, no flutes, no violins, no 
dress, no tobacco, no laziness." 

ADAMS AND FRANKLIN. 

When Adams went to meet Lord Howe, he had to 
sleep one night in bed with Franklin in a small room. 
Adams wanted the window shut: Franklin wanted it 
open. Adams yielded: Franklin expounded to him his 
theory that no one ever takes cold from exposure to cold 
air. He says that Franklin, according to his own physi- 
cian, died of a cold caught by his sitting some hours in 
a draft from a window. 

ADAMS AS A FIGHTING MARINE. 

During Adams's first voyage, his vessel encountered the 
British privateer "J/«r///«," which the '•'•Bosto^i'^ captured 
after a short action. One cannon shot passed over Ad- 
ams's head as he stood on the quarter deck. Commo- 
dore Tucker found him on deck, musket in hand, firing 
like a common marine, ordered him to go below, and 
passed on. Several minutes later he still found him fir- 
ing his musket. "Why are you here, sir?" cried the 
Commodore; "I am commanded by the Continental Con- 
gress to carry you in safety to Europe, and I will do it." 
He seized the minister to France in his arms and forced 
him away. 



ii6 JOHN ADAMS. 

ADAMS AND MANSFIELD. 

In 1783, while still negotiating the peace, Adams was 
in London. His friend Copley procured for him from the 
great judge, Lord Mansfield, a place in the House of 
Lords to hear the King's speech at the opening of Par- 
liament, and to witness the introduction of the Prince of 
Wales, then arrived at the age of twenty-one. While 
he stood waiting in the lobby, among a hundred of the 
first people of the kingdom, "Sir Francis Molineux, the 
gentleman usher of the black rod, appeared suddenly in 
the room with his long staff, and roared out with a very 
loud voice, 'Where is Mr. Adams, Lord Mansfield's 
friend?' I frankly avowed myself Lord Mansfield's friend, 
and was politely conducted by Sir Francis to my place. 
A gentleman said to me the next day, 'How short a time 
has passed since I heard that same Lord Mansfield say 
in that same House of Lords — My Lords, if you do not 
kill him, he will kill you!' Mr. West said to me that 
this was one of the finest finishings in the picture of 
American independence." 

Lord Mansfield had not said this of Mr. Adams indi- 
vidually, but of the Americans collectively: "If you do 
not kill them," etc. This was on Dec. 20th, 1775. 

ADAMS'S COMMON PLACE BOOK. 

When Mr. Adams was about twenty years old, he be- 
gan a common place book, entering in it extracts from 
his reading. The first entry in it was a maxim in Greek 
verse, ascribed to "Pythagoras:" 



JOHN ADAMS. ^ 117 

Let sleep not close my languid eyes 
Till thrice the day has been reviewed: 

I've traveled where? I've done what work? 
What duty have I left undone? 

This maxim was followed by the eminent German 

physician, Hiifeland (i 762-1 836), who asked himself 

every» night, "What have I learned to-day?" 

ADAMS'S DIARY. 

Mr. Adams began a diary at the same time, in which 
he entered his notes of the day, his feelings, his impres- 
sions of persons and events. Pressure of business often 
interrupted it for long periods. His son, John Quincy, 
did the same. Much of these documents has been pub- 
lished, making valuable historical material. 

ADAMS IN ENGLAND. 

When Mr. Adams was appointed minister of the Uni- 
ted States at the English court, one of the foreign am- 
bassadors at Paris said to him, "You have been often in 
England?" "Never but once, in November and Decem- 
ber, 1783." "You have relations in England, no doubt?" 
"None at all. " "None? How can that be? You are of 
English extraction." "Neither my father or mother, 
grandfather or grandmother, great-grandfather or great- 
grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or 
care a farthing for, has been in England, these one hun- 
dred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop 
of blood in my veins but what is American." "Age, we 
have seen proof enough of that." "This flattered me, no 
doubt," Mr. Adams adds, "and I was vain enough to be 
pleased with it." 



ii8 JOHN ADAMS. 

THE STORY OF JOHN ADAMS. 

FOR A SCHOOL OR CI.UB PROGRAMME. 

Each numbered paragraph is to be given to a pupil or 
member to read, or to recite, in a clear, distinct tone. 

If the school or club is small, each person may. take 
three or four paragraphs, but should not be required to 
recite them in succession. 

1. John Adams was born at Braintree, Massachusetts, October 
ipf 1735- He was descended from worthy ancestors, who were among 
the founders of the province in which he was born. 

2. His father was a farmer in plain circumstances, but a man 
who had received a college education as the only legacy from his 
father. He determined that John should have the best college edu- 
cation that could be afforded. 

3. His mother's name was Susanna Boylston, the daughter of 
Peter Boylston, of Brookline, Massachusetts. 

4. Both of his parents were possessed of admirable traits of 
character, and were earnest and exemplary in their religious lives. 

5. John Adams says that at the first he did not take much inter- 
est in his books, and thus disappointed the expectation of his parents 
who had designed him for a clergyman's life. 

6. A change of tutors made an entire change in the boy's incli- 
nations, and he began eagerly to study. He entered Harvard Col- 
lege in 1751, and was graduated in 1755, taking a high position in his 
class. 

7. Having to make his own way in the world, he began by teach- 
ing in the public school in the town of Worcester. His salary was 
very small, which required of him the utmost carefulness in his ex- 
penditures. 

8. Preferring the study of law to that of the ministry, he pre- 
pared himself for his profession under the guidance of Mr. Putnam 

9. By diligent attention to his studies he became one of the 
most thoroughly informed members of the bar in New England. 

10. In October, 1758, he was admitted to practice in the Supe- 
rior Court in Boston, and for several years had to struggle like many 
young lawyers to gain practice. 

11. The first legal case he undertook was decided against him, 
which greatly mortified him. 

12. In 1761 he heard the splendid argument of James Otis 



JOHN ADAMS. li") 

against the "Writs of Assistance," which made a vivid impression 
upon his mind. 

13. On the 25th of October, 1764, he married Abigail Smith, the 
second daughter of the Rev. William Smith, of Weymouth. She was 
a woman of great beauty, strong intelligence, and sterlmg moral ex- 
cellencies. To her more than to any one else he owed the great suc- 
cess of his after life. 

14. His fellow townsmen of Braintree honored him with the po- 
sitions of Surveyor of the Highways, Selectman and Assessor, and 
Overseer of the Poor. The duties of these offices he performed with 
vigor and fidelity. Faithful in the least he was afterwards to become 
faithful in much. 

15. Mr. Adams became one of the leaders of the patriot party 
by arguing for the sittings of the Courts of Massachusetts, which 
Chief Justice Hutchinson had refused to hold, because they disregard- 
ed the Stamp Act. 

16. John Adams and Jcsiah Quincy, Jr., defended, in the face of 
great opposition, the officers and soldiers concerned in the Boston 
Massacre, which occurred on the 5th of March, 1770. It was a brave 
and noble act for these two men to do. 

17. In June, 1770, Mr. Adams was elected a delegate from Bos- 
ton to the General Court, he having made that city his home. The 
patriots needed just such a man as Mr. Adams with his legal know- 
ledge and ability as their counselor and guide. 

18. While delegate he rendered important services by antagon- 
izing Governor Hutchinson, and afterwards secured the impeach- 
ment of Chief Justice Oliver who was bent on destroying the liberties 
of the colonies. 

IQ. He took his seat as delegate to the first Continental Congress 
in September, 1774, and became at once one of its recognized leaders. 

20. He was returned as delegate to the second Congress in May, 
1775, and nominated Washington as commander-in-chief. 

21. He returned home in December, 1775, to accept the position 
of Chief Justice of Massachusetts, and to serve as member of the 
Provincial Council. 

22. Early in 1776 the Council having elected him a delegate to 
Congress to serve during the year, he went back in February to Phil- 
adelphia and exerted a profound influence in that body and through- 
out the whole country. 

23. He succeeded in inducing Congress to advise the colonies to 
institute governments of their own in place of the royal government 
which had ceased to exist. 

24. On the fifteenth of May Mr. Adams seconded the resolution 
of Richard Henry Lee for the independence of the colonies, which 
was adopted by a bare majority of one. 



120 JOHN ADAMS. 

25. He was appointed on the committee to prepare a declara- 
tion, which, when presented, he defended in a masterly and convinc- 
ing manner. 

26. His efforts so impressed Jefferson that he styled Mr. Adams 
"The Colossus of Independence" on the floor of Congress. 

27. Mr. Adams was a member of the "committee on relations 
with foreign powers, and was also at the head of the Board of War. 

28. He also served as a member of over one hundred different 
committees, and was chairman of at least twenty-five. 

2g. He exerted all his powers to give efficient aid to the army, 
and was the inspiring spirit in organizing a naval force, which was 
always a cherished feature of his national system. 

30. He was appointed in November, 1777, by Congress, to re- 
place Silas Deane, to secure an alliance with France, in response to 
the demand," IFf want one man of inflexible integrity on the embassy." 

31. He returned home on the second of August, 1779, having 
performed his arduous and perplexing duties with great tact and dis- 
cretion. 

32. While assisting in framing a new Constitution for Massa- 
chusetts, he was appointed on the 27th of September, 1779, one of the 
commissioners to help negotiate a treaty of peace with Great Britain. 

33; While in Paris waiting for the movements of that power, he 
had a controversy with Count de Vergennes, the French Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, in which Dr. Franklin became involved. 

- 34. The matter was ultimately referred to Congress, which, by a 
formal vote, approved the course of Mr. Adams. 

35. He secured, on the 19th of April, 1782, as minister plenipo- 
tentiary, a recognition by Holland of the independence of the United 
States, and afterwards a large loan for the benefit of the government. 

36. He helped conduct, with John Jay and Benjamin Franklin, 
the peace negotiations with Great Britain to a successful issue, which 
were definitely completed in September, 1783. 

37. He afterwards assisted in negotiating commercial treaties 
with the different nations of Europe, and heard King George an- 
nounce to Parliament his recognition of the independence of the 
United States. 

38. Mr. Adams was appointed on the 14th of February, 1785, 
minister in the Court of St. James. George the Third committed an- 
other stupendous blunder, which was repeated by his Court, in treat- 
ing Mr. Adams with frigid politeness and cold distrust. 

39. Returning to Boston in 1788, he gave his cordial support to 
the constitution then under discussion by the States. 

40. In the election of 1789, he was unanimously chosen Vice 
President of the United States. The office often permitted him to ex- 
ercise a controlling influence upon public affairs. 



JOHN ADAMS. 12I 

41. And on the refusal of Washington to serve a third term he 
was elected President in 1796, and inaugurated at Philadelphia on the 
4th of March, 1797. 

42. During his term of office the famous measures known as the 
"Alien and Sedition Acts" were passed. 

43. Although Mr. Adams's participation in these laws, which 
were aimed mainly at French malcontents in the country, was con- 
fined to his official signature, it prevented his election the second 
time as President. 

44. During his administration a navy was created m anticipa- 
tion of a war with France, the beginning of our glorious naval force 
which has rendered such splendid service in the Spanish-American 
war. 

45. For twenty-fiv& years after his retirement from J;he Presi- 
dency, Mr. Adams lived a peaceful life in his New England home. 
Sorrow and joy were, however, his portion. 

46. On the 28th of October, 1818, his wife, who had been the 
strong support of his life, was called away. In 1825, when nearly 
ninety years of age, he heard of the election of his son, John Quincy 
Adams, as President of the United States, by the House of Repre- 
sentatives. 

47. On the 4th of July, 1826, the celebration at Quincy was going 
on, and the ringing cheers to the toast for the day, which Mr. Adams 
had presented on the 30th of June — "Independence Forever'' — were 
plainly heard by those who were watching the dying statesman. 

48. His lips moved. Bending over him his attendants caught 
the words, "Thomas Jefferson still lives." It was not so. His great 
co-worker in the cause of independence had just before preceded 
him to the life beyond. 



PROGRAMME FOR A JOHN ADAMS EVENING. 

1. Music. 

2. Essay — Brief Sketch of Adams's Career. 

3. Brief Papers — "Adams in France," "Adams in Holland." 
Discussion. 

4. Music — Vocal or Instrumental. 

5. Brief Sketches — "Adams and Hamilton," "Adams and Jeffer- 
son." Discussion. 

6. Music. 

7. Brief Sketch — "Alien and Sedition Acts." 

8. Recitation — "From Speeches of John Adams." 

9. Music. 



122 JOHN ADAMS. 

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW. 

What is said regarding the supremacy of one mind? Of the con- 
stitution of a State? What is the story of the County officers? What 
does it illustrate? What become of the old jail? The new structure? 

What is said of ancient Greece? Of Solon? Of modern States? 
Of the elements in our daily life ? To what are republics suited? What 
has been the history of France? Of Switzerland? To what should 
these facts lead us? What is the influejice of small communities on re- 
publics ? 

What is said of the Constitution of 1788? Of the founders? Of 
the caution to be borne in mind? Of patriotism? Of feeling and opin- 
ion ? Of WashingtoJt ? 

What lessons should republicans and democrats learn ? What is 
said of the early patriots who had different opinions? Of fohn Ad- 
ams? Of Henry Adams? Of his ancestors? Of his estate? Of the 
effect of Nature t(poti the New E7igla7ider? Of Calvin s system? Of 
Braintree? Of foseph Adams and family? Whor/i did President 
Adams's father marry? When was fohn Adams born? When and 
where graduated? To what profession destined? Who were sotne of 
his classmates? What was the custom regarding rank in College? 

What is said of Adatns's early life? Of the year of his gradua- 
tion, etc ? Of the struggles of different religious sects? 

What does Adams say of his perplexity in choosing his vocation, 
etc. ? Of Puritan standards and theology, etc. ? Of Adams contrasted 
with other statesmaii ? Ofselfrelia^tce and self esteem ? 

Of Mr. Adai7is's law studies, etc.? Of Adatns s profits as a law- 
yer? Whom did Mr. Adams marry? What is said of the marriage? 
Of Mr. Adams's devotion to his professiofi? Of Adams and Otis? Of 
A da?}is and March j, 777./ ? Of the Stamp A ct and Mr. A dams ? Of 
his associates, etc.? 

Of Chief fustice Oliver? Of the Boston Tea Party? Of fohn Ad- 
ams as compared with Samicel Adams and others? Of the resolu- 
tiofi of resistance, etc.? Of the response of the colonies? Of the Con- 
tinental Congress? Of Parlia7ne7it? Of the love of persotial liberty? 

Of the Feudal system ? Of fines? Of the kitig and the raising of 
money? Of King fohn and the Magna Charta,etc.? Of George III 
and his mother? His tnittisters attd Pitt, etc ? 

What is said of North, etc. ? Of the resistance of the commercial 
States ? Of the jotirney of the delegates fro>n Massachusetts ? Of Vir- 
ginia and Massachusetts? Of the cotnmittee on which Mr. Adams 
served? Of the Declaratioti of Rights? 

Of the control of the Congress? Of the action of the Congress, etc. ? 
Of the suggestion of the Provincial Congress? Of a commander-in- 
chief, etc. ? 

Of the points gained by Ada?ns? Of Mr. Adams's confiden- 
tial letters, etc.? Of his estif?tate of Dickinson, Hancock? Of their 
effects? Of Dickinson's Olive Branch? 



JOHN ADAMS. 123 

What instructions were given by Massachusetts? How did 
Adams find the Congress ? What did he prophesy f What did Paine 
write ? What did A dams say regarding the acts of Congress ? What 
were the difficulties of the situation? 

Who determined to popularize the local government? How are 
the Hamiltonian and feffersonian systetns compared? What is said 
of Adams and Lee, etc.? What committee was appointed May 2^th? 
What resolutions were adopted fune 17th ? What fnovetnent began 
May 6th ? What preamble was adopted May 13th ? What was its ef- 
fect, etc. ? What is said of the debate on Lee's resoluiioti ? 

IVhat documetit was reported fune 26th ? To whom had its 
preparation been referred? Who wrote it? What is said of the de- 
bate upon it? What did Adams write to his wife in the successive 
paragraphs of the sketch, etc.? What is said of Ada?ns's supreme ef- 
fort? Of the sessions of the Second Continental Congress? Of his 
work Oft committees ? Of the one on which he served utiunllingly ? 

Of the conduct of the business of the Congress? Of the jealousies, 
prevailing? Of the want of appreciation of Washington ? Of Wash- 
ington's rank among men? Of the denial of hostility by Adatns to- 
wards Washington, etc. ? 

What was Mr. Adains commissioned to do? What was his object 
in going to Amsterdam ? What was the character of the French min- 
ister? Ln what way were our commissioners humiliated? What did 
the Americafts dettiand should be their western boundary? What was 
Spaitt s counter claim ? \\ 'hat can you say of negotiations concerning 
the fisheries? What was the most difficult subject with which they 
had to deal? When was the final treaty of peace signed? 

What is said of Adams as minister to England and of his ser- 
vices? Of his election as Vice President? Of his estimate of the officef 
Of Adafns and Hafuilton ? Of the abuse of Washington ? 

What happened when Adams demanded the fulfillment of the 
treaty of lySj ? When and why did he resign ? When was he installed 
as Vice President? Which party abused both Washington and Ad- 
ams? What infiuence did the French Revolutioji have upon Ameri- 
can feeling and policy ? W^hat great mistake in policy was co77i)nitted 
by President Adams? Under what circumstances were the famous 
Alien and Sedition laws passed? What did the Sedition law forbid? 
What oppositiojt was made to the law in Eastern Pennsylvania? 

What can you say of the Federal party during the administra- 
tion of fohn Adams? What caft you say of fefferson in this cottnec- 
tion? What effect did his election to the Presidency have upon the 
Federal party ? What did the Federalists undertake to do in the 
closing days of their power? 

What canyon say of the appointment of Chief fustice Marshall? 
What can you say of the ivritings of Adams? How did the reconcili- 
ation between fefferson and A dams come about ? What can you say of 
the death of these two men? What was the favorite motto of John 
Adams? 



124 JOHN ADAMS. 

SUBJECTS FOR SPECIAL STUDY. 



The Puritan Character. 

John Ada/ns and Sainiiel Adams Compared. 
The Feudal System. 
Character of George III. 
The Continental Congress. 
The Influence of the Quakers. 
The Different Colonial Governments. 
John Dickinson. 
Magna Charta. 
Sajfiuel Chase. 



The Various Cotnmissions Afipoitited by the Ufiited States. 
Govertimettt During this Period. 



CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF JOHN ADAMS. 

1735 Oct. 19. John Adams born at Braintree (Quincy), Mass. Spent 
his early youth on his father's farm. 

1755 Graduated at Harvard College. Became schoolteacher at 

Worcester. 

1756 Aug. 23. Began to study law while teaching. 

1758 Oct. Came to Boston. Nov. 6, admitted to the bar; recom- 
mended by Gridley, leading lawyer of the colony. 
1761 Heard Otis's speech on Writs of Assistance. 

1764 Oct. 25. Married Abigail Smith, of Weymouth, clergyman's 

daughter. 

1765 Dec. 18. Boston chooses Adams as colleague with Gridley and 

Otis for argument before the Governor and Council, Dec. 20. 
1768 Moved to Boston. Gov. Bernard offers him post of Advocate- 
General in the Admiralty Court. He refuses it. 

1770 March 5, "Boston Massacre." March 6, Adams and Josiah 

Quincy retained as counsel for Capt. Preston and the sol- 
diers. June 3, elected Representative for Boston. Oct. 24- 
30, Preston tried and acquitted. 

1771 In ill health: removes to Braintree. Despondent. Office in 

Boston. 

1772 In autumn, removed to Boston: determines to avoid politics. 

1774 June 17, elected one of the five representatives of Massachu- 

setts in the First Continental Congress, Philadelphia, Sept. i. 
Active on committees and in debates. Starts for home on 
Nov. 28. 

1775 May 5-10, journey to Second Congress. Opposes Dickinson's 

"Olive-Branch;" still dares not say "independence!" Urges 



JOHN ADAMS. 125 

adoption of Army and appointment of Washington; effected 
June 15. Home in August: in Congress, Sept. 15: on many 
committees. Home, Dec. Appointed Chief Justice of Mas- 
sachusetts: accepted: never served. 

1776 Jan. 24-Feb. 8, to Philadelphia with Gerry. May 6-15, new 

State governments advised: Adams assists in making consti- 
tutions. June 28, committee on Declaration reports it: July 
3, Adams leads debate on it. Work of organization of busi- 
ness. Conference with Lord Howe, Sept. 11. Went home, 
Oct. 13. 

1777 In Congress till Nov. 11. Dec. 3, receives appointment, Com- 

missioner to France. 

1778 Feb. 13, sails from Boston: March 31, reaches Bordeaux: at 

Paris, April 8. Organizes the work of the commission. 

1779 June 17-Aug. 2, voyage home. Elected to Massachusetts con- 

vention, Aug. 9: serves from opening, Sept. i to Nov. 10. 
Chosen envoy to make peace with England, Sept. 27: com- 
mission dated Oct. 20: accepted Nov. 4. Sailed in French 
frigate Nov. 13. Reached Ferrol Dec. 8. 

1780 In Paris, Feb. 5, with sons, John Q. and Charles. Controversy 

with Vergennes, middle of June. To Holland, July 27. Pub- 
lishes information about the United States. Thanks of Con- 
gress, Dec. 12. 

1781 Jan. I, commissioned plenipotentiary to Holland. To Paris, 

July 6: soon returns: continues work in Holland. 

1782 April 19, Holland recognizes independence; Adams received 

as minister. Loans obtained: commercial treaty obtained, 
Oct. 7. Negotiation with England begins March 11: with 
Oswald as agent, April 6: Adams joins Jay and Franklin in 
Paris, Oct. 26. They disobey orders of Congress and nego- 
tiate without Vergennes. Nov. 30, agreement reached and 
signed. Dec. 4, Adams sends resignation; not accepted. 
Commissioners are provoked and disgusted by Livingston's 
censure. 

1783 Jan. 20, commissioners and English agree on truce. Final 

treaty Sept. 3. Sept., Adams appointed with Jefferson and 
Franklin to make commercial treaty with England. Sept. 14, 
Adams ill: to England for rest and health, Oct. 24: in Lon- 
don, Oct. 26. Dec, to Holland. 

r/84 Same commissioners have power to treat with any nation, and 
meet at Paris, Aug. 30. Mrs. Adams joins him Aug. 7. House- 
keeping near Paris, Aug. 17. 

1785 Feb. 24, Congress appoints him minister to Great Britain. 
Family to London, May. Adams presented to King George 
HI, June I. Finds his place difficult. 

1787 Resigns: resignation accepted, Oct. 5. Congress commends 

him. 

1788 April 20, sails from England. 



126 JOHN ADAMS. 

1789 April 6, declared to be elected Vice President: takes seat, New 
York, April 20. Often called to give casting vote in Senate. 
1793 Vice President again. 

1797 Is elected President by three votes over Jefferson. Takes 

Washington's Cabinet. Hamilton's leadership in the party 
is troublesome. 

1798 French and English insolence and encroachments. X Y Z af- 

fair in France: war spirit aroused: Adams popular. Navy in- 
creased. Alien Acts, June 25 and July 6: Sedition Act, July 
14. Kentucky Resolutions, Nov. 6: Virginia Resolutions, 
Dec. 21. 

1799 Feb., New Embassy to France: it made a treaty Sept. 30, 1800. 

Continued party struggles. Fries condemned for treason. 

1800 Fries pardoned. Cabinet changed. Federal party fails: Ad- 

ams not re-elected. 

1801 Quarrel with Jefferson. Marshall made Chief Justice. '"The 

Midnight Judges." Adams retires. Loses his son Charles. 

1818 Oct. 28., Death of Mrs. Adams. Adams previously reconciled 
to Jefferson. 

1820 Mr. Adams made presidential elector; votes for Monroe. Elect- 
ed to Massachusetts convention, and made president of it, 
but declines. 

1826 July 4, Death of John Adams, almost 91 years old. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



For those who wish to read extensively the following works are 
especially commended: 

"Works of John Adams, with Life, etc." By his grandson, Charles 

Francis Adams. 10 vols., 8vo: the first three are biographic. 
"Life of John Adams." By John Quincy Adams and Charles Francis 

Adams: chiefly by C. F. Adams. 2 vols., i2mo. (Nos. i and 2 

have been principally used for this biography.) 
"John Adams." By John T. Morse, Jr. (American Statesmen Series.) 

I vol., i2mo. 
"Constitutional History of the U. S." By Hermann Edward Von 

Hoist. Vol. L 
"History of the U. S. under the Constitution." By James Schouler. 

Vol. I. 
"Narrative and Critical History of America." By Justin Winsor. 

Vol. Vn. (This volume gives abundant references to other 

books.) 
"History of the People of the U. S." By John Bach McMaster. Vols. 

I and IL 
"Cyclopedia of Political Science." By J. J. Salor. 3 vols., 8vo. 

"The Guide to American History," Channing and Harz, i vol., 
l2mo, is an excellent manual of reference for all students. 



APR 8 1903 



COPY DEL. TO CAT. DiV. 
APR. 9 1903 



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